Climate tech in India has moved from the margins to the mainstream. A decade ago, only a few hundred startups were working on clean energy, climate-smart agriculture or resilience; today, there are well over 800 active climate tech ventures that have collectively raised more than USD 3.6 billion between 2014 and 2024. That momentum matters for a country that is both one of the world’s largest emitters and one of its most climate‑vulnerable economies. Instead of treating climate action as a cost, these startups are trying to turn it into better crops, cheaper power, resilient cities and new green industries.
Behind the headlines is a more granular story of founders solving very specific Indian problems. Some are building cheap, reliable cold chains for small farmers; others are designing carbon‑negative bricks from crop residues, or software that squeezes more output out of existing industrial plants. As India’s net‑zero by 2070 commitment slowly translates into policy, these companies are becoming the experimental lab for what decarbonisation and adaptation will actually look like on the ground: messy, local and opportunity‑rich.
On the mitigation side, a growing cohort focuses on decarbonising heavy industry and power. Bengaluru‑based LivNSense, for example, uses AI, IoT and digital twins to help refineries, petrochemical plants and other large industrial sites cut greenhouse‑gas intensity by 20–25%, essentially turning software and data into an emissions‑reduction tool that can be bolted onto existing assets. Others are working further upstream on fuels: Coimbatore‑headquartered Buyofuel runs a digital marketplace for biomass‑based fuels and waste‑derived feedstocks, connecting industrial users with suppliers, and was recently recognised among the top 100 global startups in the “Clean Energy and Storage” category at the SET Awards 2024. Together, these firms tackle a central Indian challenge: how to reduce emissions from fast‑growing energy and industrial demand without waiting for entirely new plants to be built.
Agriculture is another front line. Climate‑smart agritech startups are trying to reduce emissions while boosting farmer incomes and resilience. Platforms like Varaha work with smallholders to shift to regenerative practices and tree‑based systems that enhance soil carbon, generate carbon credits and improve yields; the credits are then sold to corporates looking to meet climate targets, creating a new income stream for farmers. Other ventures focus on the physical side of resilience and food loss. Cold‑chain innovators such as Ecozen (profiled among leading Indian cleantech startups) deploy solar‑powered irrigation systems and cold rooms that cut diesel use and post‑harvest losses while raising net farmer incomes. The common thread is that climate benefits are woven into farmers’ economic incentives instead of added as a “nice to have”.
Urban systems and infrastructure are emerging as a third cluster. Water and sanitation startup Solinas builds AI‑enabled robotic systems that clean and inspect pipelines, reducing leaks, contamination and manual scavenging while saving energy and water for cities under growing stress. Air‑quality platform Respirer Living Sciences (often branded as urbansciences) develops sensor networks and analytics for real‑time monitoring of emissions and pollution, supporting better regulation and corporate action in Indian megacities. These startups sit at the intersection of public health, infrastructure efficiency and climate mitigation, and their tools are already being deployed by municipalities and utilities.
Materials and the built environment are also seeing breakthrough ideas. Social enterprise GreenJams has developed Agrocrete, a carbon‑negative building material made from agricultural residues and an up‑cycled binder, offering improved insulation and potentially 50% lower building costs compared with conventional materials. In a country where construction booms and crop‑residue burning both drive emissions and local pollution, turning waste straw into structural walls is a deeply Indian kind of innovation. Similar thinking is visible in regenerative farming‑linked ventures highlighted on platforms like Bharat Climate Startups, which match soil‑restoring practices with carbon and commodity markets.
All of this is happening against a financing backdrop that is still catching up. Recent analyses suggest that climate tech has become one of the most dynamic pockets of Indian venture capital: more than 800 climate‑focused startups are active, and over USD 3.6 billion has flowed into the sector over the last decade, with more than USD 2.2 billion arriving just in the last 18 months. Yet this is still modest relative to India’s overall capital needs for energy, transport, agriculture and resilience, and funding tends to concentrate on mitigation themes that fit typical VC return cycles—like software and mobility—rather than slower‑payback adaptation or industrial hardware. That leaves room for new models: blended finance, outcome‑based funding, and more patient capital from domestic institutions.
For policymakers, investors and citizens, the signal to watch is not just how many climate tech startups exist, but how deeply they are integrating into India’s real economy. Are farmers, factory managers, city engineers and households actually adopting these solutions at scale? Are state electricity boards, banks and public‑sector undertakings partnering with young firms to decarbonise legacy assets? Early signs—from industrial pilots with digital decarbonisation tools to state‑level roll‑outs of climate‑smart agri programmes—are promising but still nascent. If the next wave of climate finance and regulation manages to pull these startups into the centre of infrastructure and industrial planning, India’s climate tech scene could shift from being a hopeful frontier to a core engine of the country’s development story.
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https://inc42.com/resources/the-evolving-landscape-of-climate-tech-funding-in-india/