Ankit Alok Bagaria, co-founder of Loopworm, is pioneering insect biotechnology in India, transforming organic waste into high-value sustainable products for aquaculture, pet nutrition, and biopharma. A graduate of IIT Roorkee, Ankit launched Loopworm from a dorm-room vision that insects could revolutionize waste-to-value systems and address global food security. Today, under his leadership, Loopworm has scaled into India’s first VC-funded insect biotech startup, developing insect protein, insect oil, and recombinant proteins from silkworms. With innovations in circular economy, bio-manufacturing, and sustainable agriculture, Ankit is shaping the future of biotechnology, where profitability and planetary impact go hand in hand.
The Social Digest: You and Abhi Gawri founded Loopworm in your IIT-Roorkee dorm room after identifying organic waste as a major sustainability challenge—and seeing insects as the solution. Can you walk us through that “aha” moment and how you convinced yourself to build a company around it?
You know, it all started during our undergraduate days at IIT Roorkee when Abhi and I were already passionate about social entrepreneurship. We had established the Enactus chapter at IIT Roorkee specifically to promote social entrepreneurship within the institution. Initially, we were working on various waste management projects—upcycling waste from flowers, paper, and plastic.
The real “aha” moment came during our final semester when we stumbled upon a United Nations report from 2013 that proclaimed “Insects are the Future of Food & Feed.” This was our pivotal moment. We realized that insects could be a major solution to the waste-to-value process because they are nature’s scavengers—detritivores that naturally consume dead organic matter.
What convinced us to build a company around it was the elegant circularity of the solution. Food waste becomes food for insects, and insects are sustainable raw material to produce multiple types of products, serving various industries.
The fact that two billion people globally already have insects as part of their staple diet, five million people are engaged in silkworm farming & reeling activities, commercial use of Shell lac/ cochineal insects for biomaterials & cosmetics applications validated that this wasn’t some far-fetched idea, but rather a proven, natural solution waiting to be scaled.
The Social Digest: Loopworm became the first VC-funded Indian insect-biotech firm—raising an initial $3.4 M and securing grants—while operating a factory processing silkworms and black soldier flies. What were your biggest technical and operational challenges in going from lab to commercial scale?
The biggest challenge we faced was that as a young and emerging industry, insect processing lacks turnkey machinery solutions. Very few manufacturers or engineers possess the experience required to design industrial-scale equipment specifically for insect processing. This presented us with both a unique challenge and a valuable opportunity—we had to pioneer nearly every aspect of the technology we build and develop.
By focusing intensively on technology development and addressing each problem from a fundamental perspective, we’ve been able to overcome these challenges and create innovative solutions for insect processing at scale. We had to develop our technology and processes completely in-house.
Scaling up and quality assurance became our biggest operational challenges. Unlike other industries with established supply chains, we had to create everything from scratch.
Our breakthrough came with developing a proprietary extraction process that efficiently yields proteins and fats. We’ve now adapted this technology for six popular farmed insect species, which gives us tremendous operational flexibility.
The regulatory landscape was another challenge—working with regulatory bodies to shape the future of insect-derived products required extensive stakeholder engagement and education about our products’ safety and efficacy.
The Social Digest: Initially planning to sell larvae to poultry/fish farms, you pivoted to selling through feed producers after realizing the nutritional gap. What drove that pivot, and how did it transform your go-to-market strategy?”
This pivot was driven by a deeper understanding of market dynamics and value creation. Initially, we thought about direct sales to farmers, but we quickly realized that feed manufacturers have the expertise, infrastructure, and relationships to properly formulate and distribute our products at scale.
The nutritional gap we identified wasn’t just about protein content—it was about the complete value proposition that insects offer. Insect proteins are naturally hypoallergenic, which is crucial because many dogs and cats develop allergies toward conventional protein sources. They also don’t have bones, eliminating anti-nutritional factors like higher mineral, ash, and heavy metal content that you find in traditional animal proteins.
Our go-to-market strategy hence transformed to a sophisticated B2B model. We now supply high-quality, sustainable ingredients to manufacturers in animal and pet nutrition sectors worldwide. This allowed us to focus on what we do best—processing and innovation—while leveraging our partners’ distribution networks and market knowledge.
The pivot also opened up international markets for us much faster. We’re now supplying products to aqua-feed and pet food manufacturers in Europe, South America, and Southeast Asia. Working through established feed producers gave us immediate credibility and scale that would have taken years to build through direct sales.
Most importantly, this approach allows feed manufacturers to formulate products themselves, giving them control over the final product while we focus on delivering consistent, high-quality raw materials.
The Social Digest: Your current facility can produce 6,000 tonnes annually. At 100% capacity, you expect over $15 M in insect-meal revenue and have already sold ~50 tons/month to major aquaculture players. How are you building and sustaining that scale?
Our 6,000-tonne facility in North Bangalore, is the result of strategic planning and technology innovation. We commissioned this facility in January 2024, and it’s designed to produce LoopMeal (insect meal) and LoopOil (insect oil) as sustainable ingredients.
Building this scale required us to solve the upstream supply chain challenge first. We’re working with insect suppliers across India, particularly leveraging India’s distinct advantage in sericulture.
Sustaining this scale comes down to three key factors:
First, quality consistency—we’ve obtained ISO 22000, GMP+, and HACCP certifications, and we’re securing EU TRACES certification. Our stringent quality control measures cover both raw materials and finished products, supported by standardized SOPs and partnerships with reputable international third-party labs.
Second, operational efficiency—our unique operational model enables same-day collection and processing of insects, addressing logistical challenges that kept many businesses away from this space.
Third, market diversification—while aquaculture & pet foods is our current focus, we’re expanding into biopharma applications. This diversification reduces market risk and increases our revenue per tonne processed.
The Social Digest: Loopworm is pioneering transient viral-vector protein expression in silkworm pupae—40× cheaper than microbial fermentation—to produce diagnostic antigens, growth factors, cosmetics, etc. What science-biz challenges do you face bringing this to market at scale?
This is our moonshot project, and frankly, it’s what excites me the most about Loopworm’s future. We’re transforming silkworms into mini bioreactors using our LoopBac technology to produce complex, high molecular weight recombinant proteins. The potential to lower dependency on high-capex bioreactors by up to 40X and reduce operational expenses by over 10X is genuinely game-changing.
The science challenges are fascinating. We’ve successfully demonstrated expression of antigens, growth factors, and other complex proteins within silkworm pupae, but scaling this for industrial applications requires solving several technical hurdles:
Consistency and yield optimization—ensuring reproducible protein expression across thousands of silkworm pupae requires standardized processes that we’re still refining.
Purification at scale—extracting and purifying these complex proteins from biological systems while maintaining their activity and integrity is technically demanding.
Regulatory pathways—for diagnostic antigens and growth factors, we need to navigate complex regulatory requirements, though we’re focusing first on applications with lighter regulatory hurdles.
Commercial production facility setup and commissioning – for commercial scale production of recombinant proteins at global quality standards.
From a business perspective, the main challenge is market education. The biopharma industry is conservative, and convincing companies to adopt a silkworm-based platform instead of traditional microbial fermentation requires validation and proof-of-concept studies. We’re targeting applications in advanced diagnostics, sustainable cell culture media reagents, bio-cosmetics, specialty enzymes, drug discovery, and vaccine production for animal use.
The business opportunity is enormous—precision proteins command premium prices, and if we can deliver the same quality at lower costs, we’re looking at a potential multi-billion-dollar market opportunity.
The Social Digest: Loopworm has progressed from bootstrapping to a $3.4 M seed round and government support—now preparing for Series A. How have you balanced innovation, impact, and investor expectations along the way?
The funding journey has been quite an evolution for us. We initially bootstrapped using government grants and foundation funding, which gave us the freedom to focus purely on R&D and proof-of-concept without immediate revenue pressure.
Our $3.4 million seed round in 2022, co-led by Omnivore and WaterBridge Ventures, was a validation of our vision. Having investors like Mr Nadir Godrej from Godrej Agrovet, Mr Sanjiv Rangrass from ITC, and other industry veterans gave us not just capital but incredible strategic guidance.
Recently, we’ve raised an additional $3.25 million in our pre-Series A round co-led by WaterBridge Ventures and Japanese VC ENRISSION INDIA CAPITAL. This funding specifically targets commercialization of our silkworm-based recombinant protein platform.
Balancing innovation, impact, and investor expectations requires constant communication and realistic milestone setting. I’ve learned that impact investors are generally more patient with longer development timelines, but they expect clear progress markers. We’ve managed this by:
Creating a portfolio approach—while we push the boundaries with recombinant proteins, we maintain steady revenue from our animal nutrition business. This gives investors’ confidence in our execution capability.
Transparent roadmaps—we’re very clear about which products are commercial today versus which are in development. Our animal nutrition products fund our more ambitious biotech research.
The key lesson for other founders in impact space—fundraising is still upcoming in India for impact companies. You need to be extra prepared with data, clear on your unit economics, and realistic about timelines. Impact takes time, but investors want to see progress.
The Social Digest: R&D accounts for ~40% of your 49-person team, with a similar share in manufacturing—reflecting a heavy science focus. How do you maintain that balance between technical innovation and commercial ability?
This balance is absolutely critical for a biotech company like ours. We’re not just processing insects—we’re pioneering an entire industry in India. That requires serious R&D investment.
Our team is structured to support both our current commercial operations and future innovations. The R&D allocation reflects our belief that continuous innovation is essential for staying ahead in this rapidly evolving space. These aren’t just researchers in ivory towers—they’re solving real manufacturing challenges, optimizing processes, and developing new products based on market feedback.
The manufacturing team works closely with R&D to ensure that our innovations can be scaled practically. We’ve learned that what works in the lab doesn’t always work at industrial scale, so this collaboration is essential.
Maintaining commercial viability while being research-heavy requires several strategies:
Applied research focus—our R&D isn’t theoretical. Every project has a clear commercial objective, whether it’s improving yields, reducing costs, or developing new product applications.
Milestone-driven development—we set specific commercial targets for our research projects. If something isn’t showing commercial promise within defined timeframes, we pivot or discontinue.
Customer-driven innovation—our R&D priorities are heavily influenced by customer needs and market opportunities.
Revenue reinvestment model—our animal nutrition business generates cash flow that we reinvest into R&D for higher-value applications like recombinant proteins.
The quality and responsibility aspect is crucial—our B2B products ultimately impact farmers and their livestock. The trust of our clients and the livelihoods of our team push us to maintain the highest standards. This means we can’t compromise on either innovation or execution.
India has a unique advantage in this space with abundant sericulture talent, and we’re leveraging this by building a world-class team that can compete globally.
The Social Digest: You’ve spoken publicly—on podcasts and LinkedIn—about the potentials of insect sustainability and biotech. What regulatory or public perception challenges are you tackling, and how do you educate stakeholders?
Education and advocacy are huge parts of my role as a founder. The insect biotech space is so new in India that we’re essentially creating the category while building our business.
The regulatory challenge is that there’s no specific framework for insect-derived products in many markets. We’re actively engaging with regulatory bodies to help shape the future of not only silkworm pupae products but insect-derived products as a whole. The good news is that we’re focusing initially on animal feed, which has relatively lighter regulatory requirements compared to human food applications.
Public perception is interesting—as an agrarian country, India has always looked at insects as pests. We use mosquito repellents, kill cockroaches, spray pesticides. The mental shift to seeing insects as beneficial resources requires consistent education.
My approach to stakeholder education involves several strategies:
Scientific communication—I regularly appear on podcasts like “The Brand Called You” and write LinkedIn posts explaining the science behind our work. I focus on data-driven arguments about sustainability, efficiency, and nutritional benefits.
Industry engagement—We participate in conferences, publish in trade publications, and work directly with feed manufacturers to demonstrate our products’ efficacy through trials.
Ethical framing—I address the ethical implications head-on. Insects are invertebrates without neural systems—they don’t experience pain the way mammals do. If I were a regulatory body, I’d label insect-derived products with a purple mark rather than red, similar to how eggs get yellow marking.
Sustainability messaging—I consistently emphasize that one third of global farmland is devoted to growing crops and one fourth of the global marine aquaculture is devoted specifically for animal feed. Insects feed on biowaste and have higher-quality proteins than plants while requiring minimal resources.
Practical demonstrations—Nothing beats showing actual results. When aquaculture companies see increases in yield and reduction in mortality after using our insect-based products, the conversation shifts from scepticism to implementation planning.
The key is meeting stakeholders where they are—farmers care about productivity, investors care about returns, regulators care about safety, and consumers care about sustainability. We tailor our message accordingly while maintaining scientific rigor throughout.
The Social Digest: Using organic waste to feed insects provides circular economy benefits while serving aquaculture and animal nutrition sectors. How do you articulate Loopworm’s environmental impact alongside financial outcomes?
This is where Loopworm’s mission really shines—we’ve built a business model where profitability and environmental impact are directly aligned, not competing priorities.
From a resource efficiency perspective, insects are incredibly efficient. They’re cold-blooded, requiring significantly less land, water, and energy compared to traditional livestock. They thrive on organic biomass and food waste, making them some of the most efficient converters of organic nitrogen into protein.
But here’s what makes our business model powerful—these environmental benefits directly translate to financial advantages:
Cost advantages—lower input costs compared to companies using conventional unsustainable materials. Premium pricing—our sustainable products command higher prices in markets increasingly focused on environmental responsibility. Market differentiation—sustainability credentials open doors with major international feed manufacturers who have corporate sustainability targets. Regulatory advantages—as environmental regulations tighten, our circular approach positions us favourably.
We quantify our impact through specific metrics: tonnes of insects processed, carbon emissions prevented, water saved, land use efficiency. These aren’t just feel-good numbers—they’re becoming increasingly important to our B2B customers who need to report their own sustainability metrics.
The beauty is that our most profitable products—like the recombinant proteins from silkworms—also will have the highest positive environmental impact because they replace resource-intensive production methods. When we can produce the same proteins at 10X lower operational expenses, that efficiency inherently means lower environmental footprint.
Investors increasingly understand that sustainability isn’t just about doing good—it’s about building resilient, future-proof businesses. Companies that solve environmental problems while generating strong returns are exactly what the market needs.
The Social Digest: Loopworm plans to expand into plant-nutrition, pet-food, cosmetics, and pharma via recombinant proteins. What future advancements or product lines do you dream of leading in the next 5 years?
The next five years are going to be absolutely transformative for Loopworm and the insect biotech industry. We’re positioned at the intersection of multiple high-growth sectors, and I’m genuinely excited about the possibilities ahead.
In the immediate term, we’re expanding our protein hydrolysates and peptones for animal supplements and cell culture media respectively. The pet health market particularly excites me because pet owners are increasingly conscious about ingredient quality and sustainability.
But the real moonshot is our silkworm-based recombinant protein platform. In five years, I envision Loopworm as a major producer of high-value precision proteins for multiple industries:
Diagnostic applications—antigens & antibodies for rapid testing kits and biotech research. Cell culture media—sustainable growth factors and supplements that replace expensive mammalian-derived components in biotech research. Vaccine production—starting with animal vaccines and then venturing into human applications, building on our expertise with biological systems.
The broader vision is to become the world’s largest insect processor, but not just in terms of volume—in terms of value creation per insect. We want to demonstrate that by maximizing value through biotechnology and bio-processing, the insect agriculture industry will truly boom.
The ultimate dream? I want Loopworm to be recognized as the company that proved insects could be a platform for producing the most sophisticated biological products. We’re not just about feed—we’re about reimagining how biological manufacturing can be done more sustainably, efficiently, and accessibly.
If we execute on this vision, we’ll not only build a significant business but also contribute to solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges around food security, sustainability, and healthcare accessibility. That’s the kind of impact that gets me up every morning, excited to build the future of biotechnology.
This interview was conducted by Manav Vala from The Social Digest on 14/08/2025. If you have any interview recommendations or have a story that you want to share with our readers, get in touch with our editor Vedant Bhrambhatt, at editor@thesocialdigest.com
