Kanchan Barve-Mone, co-founder of Materials Magica, first discovered the magic of materials during her postdoctoral studies in polymer science at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune. Alongside her professor and co-founder, Satishchandra Ogale, she explored how to translate promising laboratory research into practical applications.
Says she, “We kept coming back to the question—how could we turn materials with promising properties in the lab into products people could actually use? “The how-to became apparent in 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic drew attention to the air people breathed indoors. They found a problem to work on.
Looking for solution
“We began thinking about how we could contribute to addressing these challenges through materials science,” says Kanchan. That year, they started Materials Magica and began exploring whether nanomaterials, including graphene-related materials, could give conventional air filters an additional function.
Most conventional filters the founders looked at were designed to catch dust and other airborne particles. The team wanted to make a filter that could also act on microorganisms once they were trapped. “Rather than simply trapping microbial contaminants, we aimed to develop filtration materials that actively address microbial contamination at the point of capture,” says Kanchan. Additionally, Materials Magica wanted to develop filters that can be fitted into existing air conditioners and air purifiers.
Deep dive
{{/usCountry}}Deep dive
{{/usCountry}}As the team studied products already on the market, the questions it asked began to change. How much would a customer pay for a filter? Would it fit the equipment they already owned? How easy would it be to install and replace? Those questions began to shape the product alongside the work on the filter material.
“One important learning was that customers do not necessarily buy a product because it uses advanced materials or sophisticated technology. They buy it because it solves a problem for them,” says Kanchan. The duo is awaiting a patent for their filter.
To the market
Materials Magica began selling through e-commerce platforms. The company has sold about 500 units to consumers and another 100 to institutional customers, according to Kanchan. One of those customers was a meat-processing laboratory that tried the filter in its facility. The laboratory reported positive results and began ordering regularly, she says. The company has also started supplying maternity care units to hospitals.
Hurdles on the way
Those repeat orders encouraged the founders to look more closely at institutional sales. But selling to a hospital or a laboratory brought a different set of problems from selling online. With e-commerce, shipping and delivery were among the difficulties. With institutional buyers, the company had to figure out how to finance larger orders and manage the time between supplying the product and getting paid.
“Market access, logistics, working capital, distribution and customer relationships are equally important,” says Kanchan. The company is exploring logistics partnerships and working to strengthen its distribution and relationships with institutional buyers.
Funding
The founders put in about ₹4 lakh of their own money. They subsequently received around ₹30 lakh in government grants through the incubation ecosystem, including the Atal Incubation Centre at Banasthali in Rajasthan and the AIC-SEED in Pune, their home incubator. The support helped the team develop its air-filtration products and pursue a second line of research in flexible batteries.
The cost of scaling up
Materials Magica reported revenue of about ₹1.5 lakh in FY 2025–26. It is aiming for operating break-even by 2028, a target Kanchan says depends on sales growth, margins and operating costs. The company is looking to raise about ₹1 crore for product development, testing, manufacturing, hiring, marketing and distribution.
“We are particularly interested in investors and strategic partners who understand advanced materials and deep-tech businesses and can bring industry connections, market access and strategic guidance along with capital,” says Kanchan.
The future
Over the next five years, she wants Materials Magica to develop a wider range of filters for homes, commercial buildings and industrial facilities. The company is also working on solid-state electrolytes for flexible energy storage, with potential applications in wearables, biomedical devices and robotics. Air filtration has given the founders their first experience of selling a product. With flexible batteries, the work is still at the stage of turning research into something that can be used in a device.
For Kanchan, the five-year goal includes building a company that can finance its operations, create jobs (they currently employ three people) and take products developed from Indian materials research to larger markets. The immediate task is to build on the first few hundred sales and put the manufacturing and distribution in place to serve customers who order in larger volumes.
“Beyond individual products, I want Materials Magica to establish itself as a company that can continuously develop advanced materials and convert them into commercially viable technologies,” she says.