Startup funding and news updates: daily roundup (November 8, 2022)

Merak Ventures’ climate tech accelerator programme

Merak Ventures, a sector-agnostic, early-stage venture capital (VC) firm, and Huddle, an accelerator-led fund for India's early-stage ventures have announced the launch of ClimAct–a ClimateTech accelerator programme.

The programme aims to accelerate and fund early-stage ClimateTech start-ups in India working in areas such as agriculture-wastage & supply chain efficiency, mobility & transport, climate finance, carbon accounting and sequestration, and digital solutions.

The applications for ClimAct opened on November 8 and the cohort will kick off in February 2023. The programme will run for four months, culminating in June 2023. The selected companies will gain access to an upfront pre-seed capital of $200,000 per startup, with the potential for a follow-on investment of up to $1.5M post the four-month programme. ClimAct’s fund partners include Aavishkar Capital, Accel, Lok Capital, Matrix Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Stellaris Venture Partners.

Phool.co among the finalists for 2022 Earthshot Prize

Phool, the IIT Kanpur incubated startup focussed on circular economy is one of the fifteen finalists for the 2022 Earthshot Prize for developing ‘Fleather’ a regenerative approach to creating leather out of floral waste.

The Earthshot Prize recognises an accomplished group of entrepreneurs and innovators spearheading ground-breaking solutions to the grave environmental of the planet. ‘Fleather’ is one of the only two innovations shortlisted from India for the award this year.

Fleather by Phool.co will now be in the running to receive a £1 million award at the second-annual Earthshot Prize awards ceremony to be held on December 2 in Boston. The Prize takes inspiration from President John F. Kennedy’s ‘Moonshot’. The finalists were selected from more than 1,000 nominations following a rigorous 10-month selection process by a panel of advisors with expertise in science, conservation, innovation, investment, economics, politics and activism.

NSRCEL signs MoU with YSBFB for rural entrepreneurship

NSRCEL, the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of IIM Bangalore, has signed an MoU with Yunus Social Business Fund Bengaluru (YSBFB).

NSRCEL’s Impact Orbit Incubation Vertical recently launched its first-ever Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation programme. The programme aims to identify, nurture and scale social innovations in rural India. It is the first foray for NSRCEL to understand the challenges to scale for-profit impact businesses from rural India.

NSRCEL will support nine early-stage startups in scaling their revenues through specialised businesses and investment-readiness training through this programme. The goal of this incubation programme is to support at least 25% of the cohort to double their revenue and to directly impact 500-700 livelihoods, and indirectly benefit 2500-3000 lives.

While NSRCEL is leading the incubation programme, YSBFB will facilitate modules on investment readiness, working capital management, and exposure to different forms of funding, including an opportunity for two ventures to raise debt from the fund.

Oorjan Cleantech enables 150 MW of solar installation

Mumbai-based renewable energy startup Oorjan Cleantech has enabled the installation of 150 megawatts of solar power and deployed $100 million of green capital in a span of four years. The technology platform of this startup brings together installers, financiers, and consumers thus providing an easier way to adopt renewable energy.

“Important keys to accelerate solar adoption are to provide easy financing and hassle free adoption experience to the consumers,” said, Gautam Das, Founder of Oorjan Cleantech.

India is targeting about 280 Gigawatt (GW) of installed solar capacity by 2030. However, as of July 2022, India’s installed solar power capacity stood at only 57 GW with just 8 GW of rooftop solar. To meet the ambitious solar target in a structured way a lot must be done especially in providing easy access to financing to the end user