[Funding alert] Online climate school Terra.do raises $1.4M from Rainmatter Capital, BEENEXT, others

Online climate school Terra.do has closed a $1.4 million seed round led by Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs (India), BEENEXT Emerging Asia, Zerodha-backed Rainmatter Capital, and prominent angels from the Indian and US ecosystem.

The startup runs online learning programmes and has a community that helps individuals across the globe transition their skills into working on tough climate change problems.

The five-month old company selects talented individuals who care about climate change. It takes them through an intensive 12-week bootcamp taught by top experts to teach all aspects of climate - science, policy, business, social justice.

The selected individuals go on to work on high-impact climate projects that leverage their skills, through the online collaboration platform.

The founders of the company include Anshuman Bapna, a serial entrepreneur who was last CPO at MakeMyTrip; Kamal Kapadia, who has taught climate change at Oxford for many years; and Mayank Jain, who was Bapna’s co-founder when they were doing their undergraduate course at IIT-Bombay. In a sign of the times, Kamal and Anshuman have never met,and have built their relationship and the company’s culture on a remote-only model.

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Committed to climate action

Nithin Kamath, Founder of Zerodha and Rainmatter Capital, said: ”Climate change is a very real threat we face as a species. At Rainmatter, we are deeply committed to climate action and would like to contribute to the ecosystem by collaborating with various technology partnerslooking to make a difference in the long run. We would encourage more entrepreneurs to solve climate issues with tech.”

Terra.do’s mission has struck a chord with some prominent investors, including Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath’s climate-focused Rainmatter fund, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs (India) led by Paula Mariwala, and Beenext, a $160million early-stage fund focused on Asia.

Anshuman Bapna, Founder, Terra.do, said:

“Climate change is such a ‘wicked’ problem because both the problems and solutions are so deeply interconnected. That’s why we were keen to get investors on board that reflected that diversity of experience, geography, and mindset. And most importantly, we wanted partners in this journey that knew a thing or two about the “do” part of Terra - operators with real-world experience building great companies and communities. We’re lucky to have these incredible individuals and institutions onboard.”

Climate change, the defining problem of our generation, needs an urgent, coordinated effort across governments, sectors, geographies, and - most importantly - individuals. Terra.do aims to use the power of the internet to help organise and scale this effort.

Teruhide Sato, Founder and Managing Partner, BEENEXT, said, “Climate change and its grave effects impact us all. We believe startups can play a significant role in improving and accelerating climate change adaption. We are proud and happy to back startups like Terra.do, who are working on unique and innovative offerings to address climate change, and creating long-lasting solutions.”

(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)