Indian Startups That are Rising to the Climate Challenge
One of the perks of leading EDF’s Innovation Fund is getting a sneak peek at some of the people, corporations and start-up companies that are developing innovative climate solutions – from big-data analytics that optimize energy use to hardware that can remove carbon from the sky.
India has different emission challenges and opportunities than many developed countries. In particular, freight, waste management, agriculture/food and construction represent the sectors where innovative technology can have the biggest and quickest impact in reducing the country’s emissions. And a growing stable of entrepreneurs is rising up to find innovative solutions in these critical areas.
Curated by local partners working in India, following are just a few climate-focused startups that are worth a deeper dive.
Sustainable Freight
- Freight Fox: Reducing costs and emissions in industrial freight and logistics operations through data, technology and efficient ground operations.
Waste Management
- Ecowrap: Solution for waste segregation, collection, tracking, recycling and up-cycling
- Lucro: Recycling waste into high-quality packaging products through blockchain solution to track the waste pickup up to recycled product.
- Ace Recycling: Company with a unique technology that can recycle batteries at room temperature, significantly reducing carbon footprint.
- Recykal: Digital platform for transactions between waste generators and recyclers, tracking targets and AI-driven optimization of operations.
- Lohum Cleantech: Recycling and repurposing lithium-ion battery packs at commercial scale with proprietary closed-loop technology.
- APChemi: Converting waste to green petrochemical through proprietary chemical recycling technology.
Agriculture/Food Systems
- String Bio: Uses methane to manufacture raw materials for animal nutrition, agriculture, human nutrition and personal care sectors.
- FIB-SOL Life Technologies: Commercializing nano-fiber and gel-based bio agri-inputs to improve soil health.
- Brisil Technologies: Converting biomass (rice husk ash and others) into raw material for products like tires, footwear, paint etc.
- A2P Energy: Converts paddy straw to manufacturing pellets for energy, soil conditioners, etc. plus reducing crop stubble burning.
- Absolute Foods: AI-driven Universal Farm Operating System that optimizes farmer productivity and enables farming without using synthetic enzymes.
Sustainable Construction
- Smart Joules: Eliminating energy waste through efficient equipment with a technology stack that offers cooling-as-a-service.
- Smarter Dharma: Software platform for sustainable resource planning throughout the lifecycle of real-estate development