Reflections from ClimateTech Startups in 2023

Over the past year, I have written about 33 different ClimateTech Startups in India and for this New Year's Eve Edition I thought I would reflect on some common themes of what makes a successful ClimateTech Startup:

1) Solving a real problem for customers today. In some domains (eg. Fintech, social media), a successful business model could be to create a platform for users and figure out monetization later. This does not work for ClimateTech. Typically the capex/ticket size is higher, customers are much more discriminating and customers are extremely value sensitive. In some cases (eg. Climes ), "Climate" is the primary reason for customers to purchase the product/service. In almost all cases however, there was a direct economic/value case for the service. In many instances (eg. Atomberg Technologies , TriNANO Technologies ), they offered substantial savings over existing solutions. It is crucial that even if the policy environment is not supportive to identify economic solutions for customers today.

2) Technical Expertise. This may partly reflect my own personal bias toward Deeptech, but for almost all the ClimateTech startups I featured had at least one founder, if not more, with deep technical expertise, whether it be academic (eg. a Phd like Ossus Biorenewables or Log9 Materials ), or significant experience in a relevant industry (eg. Bambrew , APChemi) or both. While in some cases very smart engineers were able to jugaad a solution, it was only with deep investment in research and development.

3) Diverse Skill Sets. While almost every start-up had at least one technical founder, I also noticed that successful start-ups tended to have diversity in the founding team, often a pairing of a technical/industry expert with a business/management lead (eg. DigitalPaani , Cancrie ). While sometimes that expertise came in the form of an advisory board or early hires, almost all successful startups had depth in the core technology, operations as well as sales.

4) Hustle. I am a big advocate of work-life balance more broadly (for established companies), and I have met incredibly successful start-up founders who manager a work-life balance (eg. REConnect Energy ). However, by and large, the start-ups I interviewed hustled incredibly hard to overcome technical barriers, develop systems and talent and just generally do all the things much larger companies already know how to do. I'll never forget talking with my friends at Prescinto, an IBM Company about working for them. While I absolutely love the company and wish them the best, I said I just don't think I could match their work ethic. While I sincerely hope India can achieve a more balanced work culture, if you look at what made Europe or US or China great historically it was largely on the backs of a handful of industrious innovators, and I think India will be no exception.

5) Flexibility. One of the reasons start-ups need to work so hard is that it is just really hard to figure out exactly what the customer needs are. Often, the start-ups I interviewed started solving one problem but had to pivot to a related problem that had a bigger market size or perhaps was easier to monetize. I think of companies like Sheru that are solving two problems (both for EV owners as well as utilities) and continuing to add new services or Pi Green Innovations Pvt. Ltd. that started with capturing local air pollutants and is now expanding to carbon. Almost all the above companies have pivoted in some way and I expect will continue to do so.

I look forward to writing about more incredible Climatetech startups across India in 2024. I have met so many hard-working, flexible and diverse founders solving real problems and I am optimistic for what the future will bring.

Onward and upward!