BioCompute Wins India's Largest Early Stage Climate Startup Grant The grant was offered jointly by Pilani Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Society (PIEDS) and SusMafia is aimed at spurring the innovative start-up into being at the forefront of combating the climate change crisis globally.

By Paromita Gupta

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BioCompute, a DNA based data storage start-up has won India's biggest non-equity climate entrepreneurship grant worth INR 3.1 million, at SusCrunch 2024 organised by Sustainability Mafia.

The grant was offered jointly by Pilani Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Society (PIEDS) and SusMafia is aimed at spurring the innovative start-up into being at the forefront of combating the climate change crisis globally.

Priya Shah, General Partner of Theia Ventures, a seed-stage fund investing in high impact climate-tech start-ups from India said, "We aim to catalyze USD 100 million in investments into Indian climate tech start-ups on behalf of individual and angel syndicate investors by 2030."

The action packed Summit also showcased pitches from 10 other pre-vetted, most promising, investment ready climate action startups in India. These 'Mafiosos' are in the revenue generation phase of their ventures and are now set to make significant growth through large scale implementations of their climate solutions.

Kuldeep Jain, Founder and MD, CleanMax said, "The climate action ecosystem was very nascent when we began CleanMax back in 2011. With SusMafia leading the way, the buzz at the inaugural SusCrunch goes to show how this has changed. The community is alive and is ready to mobilize the movement further."

Notably, the first cohort of SusVentures, a SusMafia programme empowering early stage climate action entrepreneurs through activated mentorship, has graduated recently in collaboration with the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani), the first official university partner of the programme.

In the first cohort, 48 student entrepreneurs from multiple engineering disciplines across the Hyderabad, Goa, and Pilani campuses of BITS Pilani had been enrolled into the programme to build 14 start-ups in sectors like Circular Economy, Energy Efficiency, EV and Solar.

Paromita Gupta

Entrepreneur Staff

Features Writer with Entrepreneur India

Covering news and trends in AI and Metaverse segments. An avid book reader running her personal blog on the side. You may reach me at paromita@entrepreneurindia.com. 
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