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Startup Insights

Food waste to proteins & feed - a field bubbling with startups

In the last few months, I have come across a number of startups and businesses working on converting food waste into something more valuable than biogas or fertilizers.

As you might be aw...

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Reducing Food Waste



Increasing use of software in solar power plant O&M

In its earliest days, most application of digital for solar power plants was in the initial stages - design - and for the overall monitoring of the power plant - through SCADA and solar power plant...

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Utility Scale Solar PV



Bioplastics or bio-based materials

In 2016, the EAI consulting team was tasked with doing a thorough market research on the future market potential of bioplastics in India.

At first, we were quite excited about bioplastics...

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Bio-based Materials



Venture capital fixation on electric mobility

Whether it is globally, or in India, a large portion of the climate tech funding if going towards the electric mobility space - batteries, OEMs, charging stations...

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Electric Mobility



The potential of Indian battery startup innovations

There's no denying that as a country, India is proving it can be as good as any other country in many spheres of economics, industry and science.

Within climate tech too, Indian start...

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Battery Storage



Potential for Indian carbon offset startups

Until a few years back, carbon offsets were hardly heard of. Their cousins, carbon credits were more in the news but even they were not quite in the limelight for a while after the expiry of the Ky...

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Corporate Carbon Management



The Stationary Power Storage Opportunity

Mention battery startups and most people in the investing or entrepreneur circles will start thinking about electric vehicle batteries.

With the e-mobility sector all being the rage,...

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Battery Storage



Hailing electric cabs - brief observations on the startup landscape

It was no surprise to me that Ola (and soon, I'm sure, Uber and the rest) got on the EV bandwagon quickly and in fact Ola Electric is claimed to be India's first climate tech unicorn.

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Electric Mobility



Intersection of fintech and climate tech

In the last few months, I have been having discussions with assorted friends and business acquaintances on the opportunities existing in the intersection of fintech and climate tech. Of specific in...

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Distributed Solar PV



Startups for low carbon thermal power plants

Almost a third of all CO2 emissions worldwide come from thermal power plants. In India, this is close to 50%.

While renewable power from solar and wind power plants are gaining ground, it...

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Low Carbon Thermal Power



Deep tech and climate tech

Deep tech refers to technologies that require significant amount of scientific and engineering research - the term is more commonly used in the context of startups working on such technologies.

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Digital for Decarbonization



Difference between bio and physical sciences

When the word technology is mentioned, most of us imagine the "hard" engineering and sciences we are familiar with - mechanical, electrical or electrical engineering, computer science &am...

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Bio-based Materials



We don’t see too many startups in the natural gas sector - except in RNG

Natural gas is supposed to the transition fuel in the global journey towards Net Zero.

It emits much less CO2 compared to liquid or solid fossil fuels, is available in many countries and ...

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Biofuels



Apps for individual CO2 footprint management

A few days back, one of my friends asked if I could recommend an app for managing her personal carbon footprint.

I told her I will check out, but at the same time I told her not to hold h...

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Digital for Decarbonization



Startups in the intersection of Digital and HVAC

Buildings consume almost 40% of all the electricity. And HVAC (Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning) consumes a dominant portion of this electricity within buildings (and in cold regions, bu...

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Energy Efficient Buildings



Pureplay BMS startups - will they be able to add enough value?

Battery management sysems (BMS) can possibly considered the brain of batteries. By controlling a number of factor during charge and discharge and by constantly monitoring the health of batteries, B...

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Battery Storage



Online marketplaces for climate tech - agri ,EV, briquettes, biofuels…

In the past one year, I have witnessed the emergence of a number of online market places for diverse domains within climate tech.

In a way, it is a surprise, because most online market pl...

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Digital for Decarbonization



Will it be plant-based meat or cellular meat?

I'm sure you would have come across a dozen advertisements in the past month about the new-fangled kind in town - the meat that did not kill any animal.

While it indeed is an exciting...

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Low Carbon Food



Is Indianized precision farming possible, or hybrid precision farming?

With global warming adding to the list of challenges that the agriculture sector in India has to deal with - in addition to a fast growing population and increasing cost of inputs - the Indian agri...

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Smart Farming



Availability of authentic data for startups in domains such as greenhouses & hydroponics

I remember visiting a startup in Chennai about two years back, just before the outbreak of COVID.

It was a small firm run by a youngster quite passionate about hydroponics. In addition to...

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Water Use Efficiency



Value of young/youth in climate tech - as opposed to IT/digital

I was a co-founder of a startup during the dot com boom. I was 28 at that time, and I was considered old to be a founder, because the world, and even India was awash with folks in their early twent...

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Low Carbon Accelerators



The impressive story of Recykal

I have been observing the Indian solid waste management sector for over a decade - first as a consulting firm trying to help entrepreneurs keen on investing in this field, and then as someone who w...

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Solid Waste Management



Industrial waste mgmt startups - why so few, when especially it is easier for logistics

Most of the solid waste startups I have encountered in the last few years in India have been working in MSW. waste from commercial sector (hotels hospitals etc), E-waste or in agrcultural wast...

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Solid Waste Management



The lesson to learn from Phool

Come elections, we will see Temple Runs by all our politicians - it is amazing how they can get so super religious when elections are round the corner.

But once the hustings are over, so ...

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Agro Waste Management



While there are lots of startups in solid waste mgmt, very few in waste water treatment or liquid waste mgmt

If you are a keen observer of the Indian climate startup scene (like I am), you would have come across quite a few interesting startups in the solid waste management space.

Recyckal,...

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Water Use Efficiency



How startups for residential water mgmt can add value, scale and grow?

Selling to the residential segment can be challenging in any country, and even more so in countries such as India - we are looking at a massive market, but one that has so many different segments a...

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Water Use Efficiency



Hemp and its relevance to India

The textile industry is responsible for about 2.5 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year, and of this, cotton cultivation will be a significant contributor.

Cotton is a water and input ...

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Low Carbon Textiles & Fashion



Low carbon building materials - their importance to decarbonization

Of late, the term Embodied Carbon has been in the limelight in the sustainable buildings and construction sector, and for all the right reasons.

Embodied carbon refers to the carbon footp...

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Low Carbon Construction Materials



Why are there too few green chemicals startups in India?

Globally, the chemicals industry is a sizable contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and so it is in India too.

But the chemicals sector is complex, not just from technology and process...

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Low Carbon Chemicals & Fertilizers



How well are Indian electric scooter startups differentiating?

If one really sits and counts, one can perhaps count close to one hundred electric scooter companies in India, a good many of them startups.

Even for a large country, a hundred is a lot. ...

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Electric Mobility



The business case (or lack of it) for standalone EV charging (& battery swapping startups)

An entrepreneur keen on starting a battery charging startup can think of himself as setting up a green fuel distribution infrastructure.

But when the demand for that green fuel is very sm...

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Electric Mobility



Fuel cell startups - too early?

In climate tech, what is it you will hear a lot about, but see little of?

One is green hydrogen of course - the amount of talk you hear versus the amount that is actually used anywhere be...

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Electric Mobility



EV as a service rather than EVs?

A shift to electric vehicles could be considered expensive for many end users - specifically industry and commercial sectors.

Expense both in terms of the cost involved in shifting t...

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Electric Mobility



Niche EVs such as Navalt Boats

Sandith Thandaserry is a rather interesting person.

He is perhaps the first, or at any rate, one of the first, to work extensively on solar powered marine transport.

Slogging it...

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Electric Mobility



Should large solar/wind power developers incubate or start green hydrogen startups?

I was recently talking to an acquaintance who was organizing an event in climate tech/renewtech.

Originally, the event used to fully about solar - and one could see halls full of eager de...

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Green hydrogen



Which component of the EV value chain is best suited for startups?

You can say that I have had a ringside view of the entire electric vehicle value chain in the past five years. 

Not entirely by design, in fact almost by default - that's one adv...

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Electric Mobility



Levi Strauss of climate tech

During the great Califonia Gold Rush, it is said that one man struck the most gold. 

And interestingly, he carried home no gold.

His name was Levi Strauss, a name that will...

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Low Carbon Accelerators



Intersection of climate tech plus health plus nutrition could be attractive

If the impending dangers and hazards from climate change are not motivating people to change their behaviours or make significant investments, what could?

For one, it is money.  But ...

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Bio-based Materials



Bio-based (and not bioplastic) packaging alternatives

The 2010-2020 decade for bioplastics was pretty forgettable.

Even though the sector gained significant mindshare, it was hardly translating to marketshare.

Even as of 2022, the ...

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Bio-based Materials



Carbon capture startups in India

Including IPCC, most experts are of the opinion that carbon capture, both from concentrated sources such as power plants as well as Direct Air Capture, is a must if the world has to reach a 1.5 deg...

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CO2 Capture & Storage



Food waste management startups in India

To me, food waste is perhaps the most criminal of all the waste generated.

Every kilogram of food that is wasted anywhere along its value chain means a lot of carbon footprint.

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Solid Waste Management



Potential for India to lead in climate software - India's role in global decarbonization using digital

India's domestic software market size (sales) is about $10 billion; its software exports, $150 billion.

The global services market is around $500 billion, so India has a 33% of the to...

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Digital for Decarbonization



Scaling deployment of industrial energy efficiency

There is a consensus amongst all stakeholders that energy efficiency, especially industrial energy efficiency, is a low hanging decarbonization avenue.

Today, both the hardware and softwa...

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Energy Efficient Industrial Equipment



Skills and talent gaps for climate tech companies

Depending on which estimate you wish to believe in, by 2030 India could require anywhere between 1 million and 25 million skilled professionals for its climate tech industry.

I agree that...

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Low Carbon Accelerators



The thing about climate tech startup clusters

Many years back, I had the opportunity to do a whirlwind tour of the silicon valley icons (google, apple, yahoo, facebook), three of which had been a startup about rwo decades back or thereabouts.<...

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Low Carbon Accelerators



Is timing right for Li-ion battery recycling startups?

Almost half a dozen startups in the Li-ion battery recycling domain had approached me in the past three years asking me for suggestions as a mentor.

Most of these startups are run by fair...

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Battery Storage