The ten startups each received $100,000 of non-dilutive funding to advance their businesses and will also be able to join the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center’s runway program.

Terraxy,  a spin-off from iLab Group at the Water Desalination and Reuse Center at KAUST, is among the ten startups selected out of the 47 finalists at the sixth TAQADAM, which started with more than two thousand applications. The ten startups each received $100,000 of non-dilutive funding to advance their businesses and will also have thebe able to join the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center’s runway program.

Terraxy is commercializing SandX and CarboSoil technologies to address the grand challenge posed by ultralow water and nutrient-use efficiencies in desert environments in the context of greening giga projects and irrigated agriculture in the Kingdom, aligned with the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030, and most significantly, the ambitious goals of the Saudi Green Initiative.

From left to right: Dr. Adair Gallo Jr.- Terraxy co-founder, Lisa Exposito - MS/Ph.D. student, Professor Himanshu Mishra, Terraxy co-founder, and Batool Albar-MS/Ph.D. student (presenter).

Terraxy, co-founded by Himanshu Mishra, a KAUST associate professor, and Ph.D. graduate Adair Gallo, has won $140k in cash prizes throughout the TAQADAM program. “In my view, a combination of the right environment and the right team is turning Terraxy into a success story. And I believe that KAUST is just like our amendment materials. KAUST has given our team all the resources to begin our journey from fundamental level research, and slowly expand from the research lab, to the fields, and, now, to the scale of thousands of trees and hectares of crops. KAUST is the right environment, but just as important as the right environment, we need the right people! Gallo said.

Read more at Arab News. | Learn more about Terraxy.