Before beginning his entrepreneurial journey
Rakesh Mahajan worked as Senior Manager-Marketing in India’s leading boiler manufacturers, Thermax, Pune.
One day, while returning home from Thermax’s sales call in Rajasthan, Rakesh witnessed the mustard stubble being burned in open fields, generating a lot of air pollution. This deeply disturbed him, and he decided to devise technologies and methods to use mustard straw as fuel efficiently in the industries. At first, he tried to convince Thermax to upgrade their systems to burn mustard straw, but the then managerial team rejected his proposal. He then quitted his Thermax job in 1998 and started his own company by putting his capital to focus on his mission.
Many industrialists liked his idea as mustard straw was available almost free of cost at that time.
He got his first order to commission a mustard-straw based boiler in 1999, but the project didn’t turn out 100% successful. He lost almost everything he owned in that single project. But he didn’t give up.
Learning from his failure
He took the challenge again and successfully commissioned the first mustard-straw based boiler in India in 2000 and then there was no looking back. In the next ten years, Rakesh converted 100+ boilers of companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, HIL, HUL, Sunpharma, etc., to mustard based fuels. As there was no organised player in the biomass fuel sector, PepsiCo reached Rakesh to help them with biomass fuel supply, which led to the birth of Steamax in 2010.
We started as Steamax Fuel Supplier (sole proprietor firm)
As we were engaged in supply/trading of biomass-based fuels and operation and maintenance activities. As the business grew, Steamax Envirocare Pvt Ltd was incorporated in 2015.
Gradually, the market competition increased, and we realised that fuel trading would not be a sustainable business. Thanks to instantly accessible information, B2B e-commerce platforms and endless choice in every competitive niche, the traders are no longer required in most supply lines.
We started focussing on the research and development of new biofuels and equipment. Since then, we have completely transformed our business model from being a supplier of biomass fuel to innovation and research-driven enterprises. The Steamax offerings have expanded beyond mustard straw fuel to include new biofuels and technologies in the last six years.
Our Mission
We have just one mission- to convert every industry, irrespective of its size, to clean and carbon-neutral biomass fuels. We keep a holistic approach to make this transition smooth for the industries. We help them with suitable combustion technology, biomass fuel, operational support, after-sales services and maintenance contracts.
