In an interview with Electronics Buzz, Abhishek Agashe, Co-founder & CEO of Elima, shares how the company is building India’s circular economy through innovation, digital integration, and community partnerships. He discusses the challenges of scaling circular supply chains, Elima’s bootstrapped journey, and their mission to bring environmental transformation while uplifting waste picker communities across the country.
Read the full interview here:
EB: Elima has made a strong commitment to making mining obsolete by promoting recycled and reused materials — what are some of the biggest technical or logistical challenges you’ve encountered in building circular supply chains at scale in India?
Abhishek: Building circular supply chains at scale in India involves addressing significant technical and logistical challenges.
Logistically, establishing decentralized infrastructure is crucial due to the dispersed availability of materials across vast geographical areas. Reverse logistics must be cost-efficient and leak-proof to prevent high-quality resources from entering the informal sector, where they are typically processed into lower-quality, lower-yield products. The primary cost drivers in the reverse value chain are material acquisition, first-mile collection, quality checking, and sorting. Once materials are aggregated effectively, logistics can be optimized at scale. At Elima, we address these challenges by developing decentralized collection networks, engaging local stakeholders for first-mile activities, training our workforce in effective material segregation, and using alternative fuel vehicles to minimize costs.
Technically, recycling and dismantling materials involve intricate processes where accurate identification and sorting of diverse material chemistries are essential. Advanced sorting and grading technologies are necessary to manage different waste streams efficiently. Moreover, developing cost-effective and high-yield recycling technologies that provide access to purified materials economically is vital. Elima prioritizes innovation in these areas, significantly investing in R&D for refining and recycling processes, as well as leveraging digital technologies for improved traceability and predictive analytics in material sourcing.
Despite these complexities, Elima’s proactive approach, through innovation and collaboration, enables us to build resilient and efficient circular supply chains in India.
EB: With Elima’s vertically integrated “phygital” model, how are you leveraging digital technology to optimize logistics, predict scrap generation, or enhance the efficiency of your recycling and refurbishment processes?
Abhishek: Logistics Optimization:
We use route optimization algorithms and real-time tracking systems to reduce fuel consumption, ensure timely pickups, and enhance fleet efficiency. Our tech platform integrates collection centers and aggregation hubs to streamline first-mile logistics — which is typically the most cost-intensive part of reverse supply chains.
Predictive Scrap Generation:
Using historical data from enterprise clients and aggregators, we’ve built forecasting tools that help predict volumes and types of e-waste and post-consumer plastics likely to be generated. This enables us to proactively plan our sourcing and processing capacity, and reduce idle time at facilities.
Operational Efficiency in Recycling & Refurbishment:
In our recycling units, we’re deploying digital material traceability tools to tag and track every incoming asset or material stream. We also use data-driven quality control systems to standardize refurbishment outcomes and improve yield from dismantling. Additionally, we’re developing a central ERP system that connects procurement, compliance, operations, and sales, allowing us to monitor and optimize every aspect of our business in real time.
In addition to digital innovation, we are also making significant strides in physical technology. At Elima, we are developing in-house processes, material identification systems, and conducting intensive R&D to recycle difficult-to-process materials. We have already achieved breakthroughs in several of these areas and are in the process of filing a patent to protect and commercialize these innovations. These advancements not only improve material recovery rates and purity but also position us as a technology-first circularity enabler.
EB: Elima has partnered with organizations like UNHCR and Save the Children Foundation — could you share more about the impact of these initiatives on waste picker communities and how you measure success in these social programs?
Abhishek: Elima’s partnerships with organizations like UNHCR and Save the Children Foundation reflect our deep commitment to creating social impact alongside environmental transformation.
Our work with these organizations focuses on empowering waste picker communities — a crucial yet historically marginalized part of India’s recycling ecosystem. Together, we’ve initiated programs aimed at formalizing informal waste workers by providing them with training, safety equipment, and steady income opportunities through integration into Elima’s decentralized collection and sorting networks.
In partnership with UNHCR, for instance, we have worked to integrate refugee families into the circular economy by providing dignified livelihood opportunities in our operations. Similarly, with Save the Children, our focus has been on eliminating child labour in waste picking by offering educational and vocational pathways to affected families, while creating safer work environments for adults.
We measure the success of these programs across multiple dimensions:
- Livelihood impact (e.g., number of households with consistent income through Elima’s supply chain)
- Social upliftment (e.g., access to education and healthcare for children of waste workers)
- Formalization metrics (e.g., number of workers moved from informal to formal ecosystem with ID cards, training, and job security)
- Waste diverted through ethical channels (e.g., tonnes of waste handled by trained, authorized networks)
EB: Being a bootstrapped and profitable company from day one, what were some key cost-optimization strategies that helped Elima scale sustainably without external funding?
Abhishek: Being bootstrapped was a conscious decision we took, since we believed that bootstrapping the business , at least for the initial years — would help us achieve a few key objectives:
- Get the fundamental understanding of material streams and unit economics right
- Validate whether the business could stay profitable at scale, and
- Build without needing constant approvals or oversight from an external board.
Yes, we had to make sacrifices and allocate capital very wisely, especially in an environment like 2021–22 where nearly all our competitors were being funded. But this helped us innovate faster, understand the business deeply, and build critical in-house capabilities. Our service offerings — whether Recycling, EPR, ITAD, or recycled materials — were always designed to be margin-positive. We didn’t chase vanity metrics or pursue unscalable pilots; we focused on building a replicable, profitable core.
Additionally, we explored access to debt capital early on and today, there are several good options to raise structured debt at reasonable interest rates, provided the business fundamentals are strong. That further strengthened our resolve to grow profitably.
We’ll continue to build at our pace deliberately and sustainably because we’re building Elima for the long term.
EB: Given your early work in rural India and your subsequent global exposure during your Master’s in the UK, how have these diverse experiences shaped your leadership style and Elima’s organizational culture?
Abhishek: My journey from working in rural India to pursuing a Master’s in the UK, has deeply shaped both my leadership style and the culture we’ve built at Elima. Working at the grassroots level in India taught me humility, resilience, and the importance of solving real, on-the-ground problems with limited resources. It showed me that innovation doesn’t always come from high-tech labs—it often comes from necessity and the sheer will to make things better for the communities we serve. That experience made me a hands-on leader and taught me things like empathy, resourcefulness, and execution against all odds. The biggest thing it taught me was I got an insight into the real India and India’s problems at a micro level. This is helping me tremendously now while building elima.
Later, my time in the UK actually seeded the idea of elima. I experienced clean built environment around me and the ‘quality of life’ that everyone who migrates to developed countries always talks about for the first time, and I want to build the same in India. I want every Indian to live in a clean environment. It also gave me global exposure to structured thinking, systems-level innovation, and a sharper understanding of how circular economies can drive sustainable growth. It instilled in me a long-term mindset and the belief that businesses in emerging markets like India can leapfrog by combining frugal innovation with global best practices.
At Elima, these experiences come together in our culture. We are grounded, yet ambitious. We encourage experimentation, but with accountability. Our teams are empowered to act fast, but with integrity and purpose. Whether it’s our decentralized model or our focus on in-house R&D, the goal is always to blend empathy with execution, and vision with viability.
EB: As Elima looks to expand across southern and western India, what are your strategic priorities for the next phase of growth, particularly in terms of infrastructure development and client acquisition?
Abhishek: Looking ahead, our strategic priorities include deepening our presence in Southern and Western India. We are investing significantly in expanding our processing and refining capacities in these regions.
Our focus will remain on three core areas: electronics, engineered plastics, and IT asset disposition (ITAD).
We aim to integrate further upstream and downstream within these verticals, strengthening our control over the value chain and making the necessary infrastructure and technology investments to support this.
I’m particularly excited about our consumer-facing brand, Flypbox, which will be scaled pan-India. After a successful soft launch and strong customer response, we are now preparing to go live with online sales through flypbox.com. In parallel, we are also developing a robust offline strategy to extend our reach. Flypbox reflects our vision of making high-quality, affordable refurbished tech accessible to both individuals and businesses across the country.
