The startup ecosystem is set to get a $200 million venture capital fund that will focus on climate tech looking at four core verticals, namely green buildings, energy storage, sustainable agriculture and alternative energy such as hydrogen and nuclear power.
Founded by Harsha Moily, the fund is likely to achieve financial closure by December, and the deployment of funds will begin from January next year. The fund is targeting 15-20 startup investments and the ticket size would vary between $500,000 and $20 million.
“The idea of the fund is to finance brilliant entrepreneurs in India and Israel working on tech solutions to combat climate change,” said Moily, who has two decades of experience in private equity and agribusiness. Anchor LPs in the fund include US-bases HNIs and investment banks.
“The ultimate goal of the fund is to ensure that each of our portfolio companies should have reduced CO2 emissions and methane emissions by a substantial sum and should have reduced the Green Premium the customers of their products would have to pay,” added Moily. He clarified that the fund will not invest in solar, wind and hydro energy firms, as that way too much fossil fuel is built into the supply chain of these businesses, and its materials after it has run its course would end up in landfills.
According to IFC, ClimateTech is a $3.1 trillion opportunity by 2030 in India. Five years from now, the VC aims to see its portfolio companies thriving, and be in a position to scale up. “We also hope to be working on a second fund which would be of a larger size,” said Moily.
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