Climate and Clean Tech | July 15, 2024

Shark Tank puts a pop culture lens on India’s climate tech future

Ryan Jones
Guest Author

Ryan Jones

If India’s hugely popular version of Shark Tank is a cultural marker, climate tech has arrived.

This spring, Indian startups pitched TV venture capitalists on carbon footprint calculators, yarns made from agricultural waste, and software to optimize wastewater to eager venture capitals.

The show “glamorized” climate tech startups, Sayesha Dogra, a KPMG consultant turned climate industry connector, said over a chorus of rickshaw honks outside of Delhi earlier this spring. Climate founders, she said, are “riding the wave of entrepreneurship in India.” 

That the burgeoning climate tech ecosystem has penetrated India’s popular culture does not surprise Dogra, who has been watching the growing grassroots enthusiasm among India’s professional class. Dogra has a bird’s eye view as the founder of The Climate Party, a roving meet-up for Indians working in, or looking to work in, the country’s hottest new sector.  

In just 12 months, The Climate Party has grown from a small gathering in New Delhi to more than 15 events across nearly every major city in India. Dogra describes the group as “a distribution platform for climate solutions, which is also making climate cool.” 

“Everyone thinks [climate change] is a very distant problem, but it is also a very close problem,” observed Namita Thapar, CEO of Emcure Pharmaceuticals and one of the “sharks,” or judges, on Shark Tank India, the televised startup pitch show debuted in India in 2022 with more than 150 million viewers. 

The world’s most populous country is being hammered by the impacts of climate change, most notably a nearly month-long extreme heatwave. India ranks 7th globally for climate vulnerability. 

Climate innovation, and with it climate finance, is gathering pace in the country. The Indian market is still small: climate tech investment in 2022 was just $5 billion, compared to $10 billion in China, $20 billion in Europe, and $70 billion in the US.

And nearly 95% of India’s climate tech capital has been invested in solar energy and electric vehicle startups. 

Building an ecosystem

Economic and cultural factors from Narenda Modi’s robust economy to the pivot from China as a cleantech supplier to the West to the sheer scale of India’s transition are converging to drive the growth of climate tech across India. 

The Climate Party is helping to build a pipeline of climate talent, knowledge and solutions to meet the moment. The group is reminiscent of early field-building efforts in the US, such as My Climate Journey and Work on Climate, seminal climate communities that supported founders and sparked a talent ecosystem. Today, more than one million people a year seek employment in climate tech on San Francisco-based jobs site Climatebase. 

The Climate Party hopes to have a similar effect in drawing talent and excitement to the sector. “The Climate Party tribe” is “hip and happening while being truly committed and informed,” said regular attendee Bhakti Devi of the Jal Smruti Foundation.

Consumer demand

Shark Tank illuminated the diversity of solutions being developed. The show opened with Cool the Globe, a carbon footprint calculator for individuals and organizations. CanvaLoop is turning agricultural waste into textile-grade fibers and yarn. Digital Paani, a water management software startup, is helping organizations optimize their wastewater usage. Two of the three secured funding from the investor judges. 

Priya Shah, co-founder of Bengaluru-based climate VC Theia Ventures, is seeing entrepreneurial activity building in green hydrogen, advanced materials, green metals, and battery recycling, in particular. 

“Lithium isn’t indigenous here, which has made battery recycling more pressing, pushing battery innovation forward,” Shah says. One example: Cancrie, in Jaipur, Rajasthan, makes nanocarbons for batteries from coconut shells and other agricultural waste. 

Consumer demand for electric vehicles is a key driver. India is the second largest electric two-wheeler market in the world after China, and its motorbikes are projected to be 40% to 45% electric by 2030. The three-wheeler market is expected to be 90% electric by 2030.

Homegrown startups such as River, Ola Electric, Ather Energy and Simple Energy are manufacturing two- and three-wheelers locally. Other startups, like Mufin Green Finance, OTO, Turno, and Vidyuttech, are making EVs more financially accessible through vehicle financing. 

New levels of purchasing power in India is opening consumer markets in other sectors as well. A third of India’s population is now considered “middle class,” having doubled in the last 20 years.

In addition to buying electric vehicles, they’re buying energy-efficient appliances, carbon offsets, and buying renewable energy directly from utilities. 

“Population and economic growth across the country mean we’re now right on the cusp of a new B2C market,” observes Rishi Nair of climate investment firm New Energy Nexus, a Climate Party regular. 

Industrial accelerant

The presence of large steel and petrochemical companies in India is driving demand for battery recycling and green materials beyond the consumer market. Kanakapura-based Metastable is one company working to recycle rare earth materials. Its “carbo-thermal” recycling process is low-energy and chemical-free.

Pratap Raju, founder of the Climate Collective, manages Asia’s largest climate tech network with over 70 accelerators and more than 1,000 startups in South Asia. Ninety percent are based in India. The strength of India’s industrial sector is giving startups a unique advantage in the region, says Raju.

“We have the manufacturing capability to move way faster,” he says. “We’ll do it cheaper and more tailored to industry.”

Industrial power and infrastructure growth also provides a ready environment for both pilot projects and offtake agreements. For example, high-efficiency heating systems and energy smart designs can be built into new buildings rather than retrofitted, says Raju.

Tech for nature

Investors are also showing increasing interest in agri- and nature-based solutions. “For anyone building nature-based solutions, India is the place to be,” says Dogra.

India has nearly 400 million acres of arable land, the second highest in the world, and nearly 25% of its land is under forest cover. This has made the country a ready testing ground for new models focused to protect, manage and restore natural ecosystems. 

Varaha develeps verified carbon credits to support and pay smallholder farmers to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations and improve soil health and water quality. With more than 100,000 smallholder farmers and land-steward partners, the company has pre-financed a large portion of its carbon credits through forward contracts for projects in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as Kenya and Tanzania. 

India is the second largest supplier of carbon offsets, and carbon markets are seen as a promising avenue for financing land stewardship, restoration, carbon sequestration, biodiversity preservation, and supporting local livelihoods. But as elsewhere, critics of the voluntary carbon markets have questioned whether India is merely an outlet for companies in the Global North to offset their emissions.

Capital for growth

The five judges on Shark Tank are a tiny but visible part of the investment ecosystem. India’s new generation of climate startups is being nourished by seed capital and public grant funding. Climate tech funding increased 29% between 2019 to 2022, mostly at the early stage-level. 

Now the biggest barrier, says Theia Ventures’ Shah, is follow-on investments and growth capital. 

“We have talent, we have capacity, we have domestic capital, but we don’t have a huge range of capital across the stack,” she says. “It’s easy to get $5 million in India, but post-Series A you have to look elsewhere. We need more access to philanthropy, debt and project finance.” 

Dogra has taken note. Bridging such funding gaps “will be our focus area going forward,” she tells me after The Climate Party’s third Mumbai event. Surrounding us were investors, policy makers, and urban planners urgently dissecting the different kinds of capital needed to support Mumbai’s Climate Action Plan, which aims to decarbonize the city and adapt to a rapidly changing climate.

Leaving the event, an advertisement for Shark Tank Season 3 could be glimpsed from Mumbai’s floating highway. The billboard declared, “Coming to invest in new Indian business ideas.”