Shell E4 plans to engage with 25-30 startups every year from 2022, help them scale

Energy company Shell India is planning to engage with 25-30 startups every year from 2022 onwards through its E4 Programme to help them scale their business, a senior company official said.

Shell, under its flagship E4 Programme, incubates and supports startups via various modules of linking talent, technology, capital, and know-how to accelerate India's transition to a sustainable energy future.

In the last three years, the company has engaged with 30 startups and supported them with investments and mentoring at the Shell campus located in India.

"We have 30 startups now that have come through the E4 programme and we're in the process of adding 10 to 12 more that'll start in January. We're planning on ramping the programme to 25 to 30 annually.

"So, the first couple of years have been a slow ramp to get there and now we're at that run rate where we expect 25 to 30 annually," Shell E4 Programme General Manager James Unterreiner said.

Shell directly provides $20,000 to each of the startups selected under the programme and facilitates additional funding through partners besides training the startups to fine-tune their solution to make them commercially viable.

"We bring not just Shell's capabilities, but all these partners' capabilities to enhance that package and make it really rich and deep for them and then offer them $20,000. Our ask in return for that is $200,000 with equity in their company, and that ask is primarily to ensure that we're working with committed startups," Unterreiner said.

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The company started an accelerator programme with a focus on energy but has diversified engagement in the field of mobility solutions, energy IOT applications, digital logistics, clean technology etc.

"We recognise that energy startups take longer to mature than maybe an IT startup or something like that. We built a programme to accommodate that... the idea is to make them commercially viable where they can engage with investors and corporates," Unterreiner said.