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Tag: climate-change
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India’s climate tech hits $12.8 billion in cumulative funding (Tracxn press release text)
Infographic from Tracxn’s India Climate Tech 2026 Report. Courtesy Tracxn. Tracxn, a global market intelligence platform for private company data, released its India Climate Tech 2026 Report, a comprehensive analysis of an ecosystem where climate action is increasingly tied to India’s energy-security and industrial priorities.
The report examines how funding activity, company formation, investor participation, and policy are developing across India’s climate-tech ecosystem, drawing on Tracxn’s coverage of the sector. It identifies where capital is concentrating, which segments are drawing the widest participation, and how a maturing policy framework is shaping the opportunities available to founders and investors.
Highlights
- India’s climate-tech companies have attracted approximately $12.8B and 1,583 funded companies, with annual funding rising from about $315M in 2020 to $2.6B in 2025.
- Policy, private capital and energy security are converging on the same sectors. With roughly 85% of India’s crude oil imported, renewable energy, electric mobility, batteries and critical minerals now serve both decarbonisation and energy-independence goals.
- Capital is consolidating into larger, conviction-led rounds, led by Inox Clean Energy’s $344M Series D (2026) and Erisha E Mobility’s $1B Series D (2025), with development finance institutions such as British International Investment, IFC and FMO actively participating.
- Renewable Energy Tech leads cumulative funding at $1.5B, while Solid Waste Management ($477M), Energy Efficiency ($352M), Air Pollution Management ($237M) and Water & Wastewater Management ($208M) show the opportunity broadening across the ecosystem.
- 2026 YTD funding stands at $791M across 74 rounds, with 66% of funding concentrated in just 5 late-stage rounds, signalling a flight to conviction-led plays.
Policy, Capital and Energy Security Are Aligning
With roughly 85% of India’s crude oil imported, the same technologies — renewable energy, electric mobility, batteries and critical minerals — increasingly address energy security alongside climate goals, giving the investment case two reinforcing drivers. India’s climate-policy framework has moved from supporting technology adoption to building the conditions for large-scale deployment. PM E-DRIVE, a ₹10,900 crore programme extended to 2028, supports electric-vehicle adoption and charging infrastructure; the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, effective October 2026, establishes a compliance carbon market covering around 490 industrial units across nine sectors; and the Rare Earth Permanent Magnets scheme, a ₹7,280 crore programme, strengthens domestic clean-energy supply chains.
Funding Has Scaled and Is Concentrating in Larger Rounds
Annual funding rose from about $315M in 2020 to $2.6B in 2025, with capital increasingly directed toward larger, conviction-led transactions in electric mobility, renewable energy and energy-transition infrastructure. Landmark rounds include Inox Clean Energy’s $344M Series D in 2026 and Erisha E Mobility’s $1B Series D in 2025. British International Investment participated in three rounds (Euler Motors, GreenCell Mobility and Ecofy), alongside IFC, FMO and Finnfund – reflecting sustained institutional confidence in India’s energy transition.
Renewable Energy Leads, With the Opportunity Broadening
Renewable Energy Tech leads cumulative funding at $1.5B, supported by the capital-intensive nature of renewable-energy and grid infrastructure, with Inox Clean Energy’s $344M Series D and $70M Series C among its notable rounds. Beyond generation, Solid Waste Management Tech ($477M), Energy Efficiency Tech ($352M), Air Pollution Management Tech ($237M) and Water & Wastewater Management Tech ($208M) have together attracted more than $1.2B, pointing to a widening opportunity across resource efficiency, environmental management and industrial sustainability.
As policy support, private capital and energy-security priorities increasingly point to the same set of technologies, India’s climate-tech market is positioned to deepen as well as grow.
2026 YTD: Fewer, Larger, More Conviction-Led Rounds
The first five months of 2026 reflect a market consolidating around scale and conviction, with $791M deployed across 74 rounds. Late-stage activity dominates at $524M across 5 deals, while seed funding stands at $61M across 44 rounds. Noida has emerged as the top funding city. Early-cycle signals remain selective, with 15 first-time funded companies, 6 new Soonicorns, 2 IPOs and 1 acquisition in YTD.
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Decarbonising rice: Mitti Labs founders on their plan for future of sustainable farming
In today’s episode, on the occasion of World Environment Day, I bring you a conversation with Devdut Dalal (Dev), Xavier Laguarta Soler (Xavi) and Nathan Torbick (Nate), founders of Mitti Labs.
Rice is a nutritional staple for nearly half the human population. Its cultivation is also a formidable contributor to global warming, accounting for 10-12 percent of all methane emissions from human activity. And Methane is 80-86 times more potent than CO2 in warming the planet over a 20-year timeframe, and about 28 times over a century.
Growing rice also takes up 40 percent of the world’s freshwater resources. By drowning their fields to suppress weeds, farmers have inadvertently cultivated methanogenic microbes that release this ‘super pollutant.’ At Mitti Labs, Harvard Business School alumni Dev and Xavi have teamed up with Nate, a distinguished scientist who’s worked NASA and JaXA, to build a “full-stack” remedy.
They started work in India first some three years ago, persuading farmers to try out a technique known as Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) that entails periodically drain their fields, interrupting the anaerobic feast of methane-producing bacteria.
This is a known practice developed at the International Rice Research Institute. What the entrepreneurs at Mitti Labs are doing, however, is to plug in an innovative digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV) platform. Using tools including satellite data and digital twins of the farms they aim to convert the methane reductions from AWD to equivalent carbon credits.
The plan at this venture, which is backed by the VC investor Lightspeed, is to become a vertically integrated carbon project developer providing farmers with free tools and a share of the revenue from the sale of the carbon credits.
Dev, Xavi and Nate, and their 100-plus team are already working with some 70,000 farmers in India, through partnerships with various NGOs and other such grassroots organisations that work closely with the farmers.
Their long-term success hinges on mobilising a substantial share of some 150 million smallholder rice growers who have farmed the same way for generations.
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Mitti Labs founders on helping rice farmers cut methane, make money (Preview)
One could think of ‘Mitti’ — the Hindi word for soil — as representing the grounded foundation of a cooler future. And for us in India while rice that grows in our soil is a daily staple, its traditional cultivation is a hidden climate hazard. Rice cultivation worldwide is responsible for 10-12 percent of human-caused methane emissions. It also consumes staggering amounts of water.
Coming up next on Conversations at India Tech Report, Devdut Dalal (Dev), Xavier Laguarta Soler (Xavi), and Nathan Torbick (Nate), co-founders of Mitti Labs talk about how they are turning rice farming into a powerful vehicle for climate action – specifically targeting methane emissions from rice fields.
Since launching in late 2023, this “full stack” climate-tech startup has scaled from an idea that Harvard alumni Dev and Xavi had to a VC-funded startup (investors include Lightspeed) touching some 70,000 small-holder farmers in India today. Mitti Labs is helping the farmers change how they water their rice crops in a manner that reduces methane emissions, cuts water use and even makes the crops hardier, the entrepreneurs say.
Nate, a distinguished scientist, adds the science and tech experience, helping Mitti Labs tap satellite remote sensing and data analytics to build a digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV) system, to track methane reductions at the field level. By converting these environmental wins into high-quality carbon credits, Mitti Labs aims to provide direct financial incentives and free advisory services to the farmers.
Catch the episode on June 5, World Environment Day, right here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s a preview with Xavi and Dev laying out their basic thesis.
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High voltage harvest: Anoop Srikantaswamy’s electric vision for the future of Indian agriculture
In this episode, I bring you a conversation with Anoop Srikantaswamy, founder and CEO of Moonrider, an electric tractor startup in Bengaluru. Anoop and his fellow founder Ravi Kulkarni bring deep background in the industry, having previously worked at automotive giants such as Toyota and Volvo Group.
Mechanical engineers by training, the two are entrepreneurs at heart, with Anoop having previously attempted a hyper-local medicine delivery venture while Ravi co-founded another electric mobility venture that he exited.
Anoop recalled that the idea for Moonrider was sparked by a conversation with a progressive farmer, who noted that while diesel is expensive, farm electricity is often free. Today, Moonrider is a vertically integrated leader, developing proprietary battery technology and power electronics in-house to achieve price parity with diesel.
In this conversation, we explore their moonshot journey — named in honour of the Chandrayaan launch — and discuss the future of connected and autonomous farming. Join us for an inside look at how Moonrider aims to drive the global shift toward sustainable, electric mechanization.
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Autonomous tractors: Anoop Srikantaswamy at Moonrider on the bigger picture — full interview coming soon
Coming up, a conversation with Anoop Srikantaswamy, founder and CEO of Moonrider, an electric tractor maker in Bengaluru. Catch the full interview on Tuesday, May 19th right here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Here’s a short preview, in which Anoop talks about the state of commercialisation of autonomous tractors and what they might be like in the future. He also talks about the bigger picture in agriculture in which autonomous gear will be important, but one of multiple factors.
