TechnoServe Plans new phase of Greenr Sustainability Accelerator Programme in India

Encouraged by the success of its first India-specific Greenr Sustainability Accelerator Programme, international non-profit organisation TechnoServe is exploring the possibility of launching  another phase of the programme in the country soon.

During the current phase, TechnoServe, which develops business solutions to alleviate poverty by improving access to information, capital, and markets, helped mobilise over Rs 250 crore in funding in the past two-and-a-half years for start-ups developing commercially viable solutions in waste-to-value, agri-tech, renewable energy and climate-tech. The programme was primarily supported by the IKEA Foundation.

Ajay Menon, Senior Practice Lead at TechnoServe India and Programme Director of the Greenr Sustainability Accelerator said they have covered 106 cities and worked with 300 start-ups in India so far under the programme. “It is a three-year programme, and we have completed over two and a half years. Around 92% of these companies come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities”, he said.

According to Menon, ‘there may be another phase of the programme, depending on funding and partner interest’. “We have built the team, models, approaches and ecosystem of investors, corporates and technical institutions. It is now a full platform. We need more funding to run additional cohorts. Cohort 3 is currently underway. Whether there will be another cohort will depend on funding and interest. Globally, there is still strong interest in climate, people and nature”, he said.

Each cohort under Greenr programme had around 130 startups, and about 100 or so remains active throughout.  “It's a wide range of companies. We have companies at the ideation stage, all the way to companies that are already growing significantly. The four big sectors that have emerged over the two and a half years of the programme have been waste, energy, agriculture and textiles. We also have a lot of interesting case studies in terms of the impact of the programme and its founders—whether it's helping them make connections, establish market linkages with large corporates, improve their revenues, or gain access to capital”, Menon said.

The global non-profit’s India USP is that it focuses on building businesses without taking equity. “We are with the founders for 12 months, identify a set of levers they can work on, and give them the opportunity to experiment. Some interventions may work and some may not. The founders learn from those experiences and keep improving. We also give them access to a network of investors, technical institutes and laboratories. If they want to continue product testing in labs or IITs, we can facilitate that. We are also building an ecosystem of corporate partners who can evaluate their solutions, sponsor pilots or bring startups into their supply chains as they look to decarbonise”, Menon said.

Greenr-supported startups have attracted investments from leading impact investors and ecosystem enablers, including Upaya Social Ventures, Caspian, Peak Sustainability Ventures, GAP Fund (Grant for Agroecology Program), Villgro, IRMA, Social Alpha, Transition VC, UC Inclusive, and ACT Grants.

Menon said the fuunding has been concentrated in sectors where sustainability challenges present strong commercial opportunities. While waste-to-value segment accounted for 42% of the funding, 24% went towards agriculture & allied sectors. “The strong investor interest in waste and circular economy businesses reflects the sector's growing commercial maturity, supported by favourable policy frameworks, increasing corporate demand, and scalable business models”, Menon points out.

According to him, there is a growing need for blended finance models that combine grants, equity, concessional debt, and commercial capital to support green enterprises through different stages of their growth journey.

TechnoServe runs entrepreneurship programmes in different countries under different names.”There are different entrepreneurship programmes and approaches in different countries, but the overarching focus remains people, climate and nature”, Menon said.

In India, TechnoServe  operates as Ashwatha Advisory Services, a wholly owned TechnoServe company.