Climate tech founders facing rough winds

OF THE 2,600 CLIMATE TECH STARTUPS FOUNDED IN INDIA OVER THE PAST DECADE, ONLY AROUND 800 ARE STILL STANDING

- Charles Assisi

You can sense the fatigue in the room when climate tech founders in India talk about raising their next round. It's not just the familiar startup tension of chasing capital. It's the slower, more bruising disillusionment of people who built something difficult, often scientifically solid, and now find themselves stranded. Not because they failed to deliver, but because the ecosystem around them failed to catch up.

The numbers tell part of the story. Of the 2,600 climate tech startups founded in India over the past decade, only around 800 are still standing. That may sound like a disaster. But to someone like Mridula Ramesh, founder of the Sundaram Climate Institute, author and an investor who has invested in more than 30 entities (not all climate tech) over the last ten years says, that's actually a sign of surprising resilience. "One fourth surviving is not necessarily a bad number," she says. "But most of them really find their footing only around year four or five. That's exactly when the money runs out."