This article is part of a series produced in collaboration with Sunway iLabs, spotlighting emerging startups from the LaunchX 2025/2026 cohort.
Open to university startups across Malaysia, LaunchX is the university startup accelerator programme that turns validated ideas into fundable startups, co-organised by Sunway University, Sunway iLabs, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), and supported by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE).
What began as a student farming initiative has since evolved into one of Malaysia’s emerging agritech startups attempting to tackle a problem far bigger than food prices or fertiliser costs.
For Leaf Eternal Trading founder, Nivahrani Sadasivam, the turning point came not in a laboratory, but in the field.
“We started as growers before we became innovators,” Sadasivam said. “We experienced the same struggles farmers faced every day. The idea for Nano-EM did not come from an office discussion. It came from seeing how dependent farmers had become on chemical fertilisers and how exhausted the soil was becoming.”
Across Malaysia, agriculture remains deeply intertwined with food security and rural livelihoods. The sector contributes billions to the national economy annually, while smallholder farmers continue to form the backbone of paddy, vegetable, rubber and palm oil production. Yet the country also remains heavily dependent on imported fertilisers, leaving farmers vulnerable to global supply shocks and rising input costs.
In recent years, fertiliser prices surged sharply following global supply disruptions, geopolitical instability and rising energy costs. For many Malaysian farmers, especially smaller operators, the increases became unsustainable.
Sadasivam said many farmers were spending between RM1,000 and RM1,500 per season on fertiliser inputs, only to see declining yields.
At the same time, Malaysia’s tropical soil systems are facing increasing nutrient depletion. According to the startup’s internal field observations and research references, accelerated nutrient leaching and long-term chemical dependency are contributing to falling soil vitality and lower productivity.
“Malaysia’s soil is slowly becoming a dead system,” Sadasivam said. “When the soil loses its living microbial ecosystem, the plants become weaker, yields decline and food quality suffers. That eventually becomes a food security issue, not just an agriculture issue.”
The startup’s response was to develop Nano-EM — a nano-encapsulated biofertiliser designed to protect beneficial microbes long enough for them to survive in the soil and restore microbial activity.
Conventional effective microorganism (EM) fertilisers already exist in the market, but Sadasivam said they often fail because the microbes die too quickly in harsh field conditions.
Leaf Eternal’s solution uses a carbon-based nano carrier extracted from organic fruit waste such as banana skins, creating what the company describes as a protective shield around beneficial microbes.
“Our focus is not just on the leaf or the crop appearance,” Sadasivam said. “We are looking at the soil, the root system and the plant together as one ecosystem.”
The startup claims field trials conducted in Pekan, Pahang showed paddy roots emerging twice as fast, alongside a 56 per cent increase in chlorophyll levels compared with traditional methods.
While the company is still at an early stage, it has already sold more than 1,000 bottles of its product and established collaborations with agencies such as FAMA and farming communities in Pahang.
Its ambitions, however, extend well beyond fertiliser.
Leaf Eternal is currently seeking RM342,000 in seed funding to scale production and expand into a broader digital agro-ecosystem platform designed to support farmers through data, distribution and soil management tools.
The startup plans to begin with 1,000 paddy farmers in Pekan before expanding across Malaysia’s east coast and eventually into high-value sectors such as palm oil, rubber and durian farming. By 2030, the company aims to support 100,000 farmers across ASEAN.
The timing may be favourable. Malaysia has increasingly emphasised food security and agricultural resilience amid concerns over import dependency and climate vulnerability. Biofertilisers and sustainable farming alternatives are receiving growing attention as policymakers search for ways to reduce reliance on imported chemical inputs.
Still, convincing farmers to move away from conventional fertilisers remains difficult.
“Many farmers are comfortable with chemical fertilisers because they can immediately see visible results,” Sadasivam said. “For us, education and field validation are critical. Farmers need to see the outcome for themselves before they trust the technology.”
To build credibility, the startup has focused heavily on demonstration plots, field trials and partnerships with local farming groups and cooperatives.
The company also faces another challenge common among deep-tech startups in Malaysia: scaling manufacturing while maintaining consistency.
“Microbes are living organisms,” Sadasivam said. “When you scale production, consistency becomes extremely important. We need to ensure the formulation, shelf life and microbial quality remain stable from batch to batch.”
Leaf Eternal’s story also reflects a growing wave of university-born startups emerging from Malaysia’s expanding innovation ecosystem.
Sadasivam first became involved with the company after meeting her senior, Iqbal, who had initiated the original student farming project. What began with unused university plots and a RM3,000 startup grant from UMK eventually evolved into a national startup competition journey marked by rejection and persistence.
The team was initially rejected from Sunway LaunchX Cohort 3 with its earlier EM fertiliser concept. Instead of abandoning the idea, the founders refined the technology and returned with Nano-EM — eventually winning Sunway LaunchX Cohort 4.
“That rejection became one of our biggest turning points,” Sadasivam said. “It forced us to improve the product, rethink the business and come back stronger.”
Today, the startup draws inspiration from fellow Malaysian agritech company Qarbotech, which uses nanotechnology to improve photosynthesis efficiency in plants. Sadasivam believes future collaboration between agritech companies could create more integrated farming ecosystems.
“They focus on improving the plant from the leaf level, while we focus on strengthening the soil and microbial ecosystem,” she said. “Agriculture needs complete systems, not isolated solutions.”
For now, Leaf Eternal remains a small startup with outsized ambitions: to restore degraded soil, reduce chemical dependency and reshape how Southeast Asian farmers think about agriculture.
“Our vision is not just to sell fertiliser,” Sadasivam said. “We want to build healthier soil systems, smarter farming ecosystems and a more sustainable future for food production in ASEAN.”