New Delhi, Feb 16: Social Alpha, a multistage innovation curation and venture development platform for science and technology start-ups, has kicked off its third edition of the ‘Energy Challenge’, a comprehensive venture development programme for clean energy start-ups in India.
Various incubators, accelerators and investors participating in the programme are expected to deploy collectively more than Rs 20 crore over a period of 24 months to support winning entries in the challenge.
Christened as the ‘Techtonic – Innovations in Clean Energy’, the platform is inviting innovators and entrepreneurs with transformative technologies that have the potential to create deep and irreversible social, economic and climate impact.
The winning solutions will be nurtured through various stages of their lab-to-market journey. They will receive access to innovation labs for prototyping, seed capital, techno-commercial pilot opportunity and accelerated market access support for scale-up, Social Alpha said in a statement.
Through the challenge, Social Alpha said it is seeking solutions across the entire energy lifecycle, value chain and multiple use cases, with a special focus this year on energy for livelihoods, smart energy systems, energy storage and thermal comfort.
Commenting on the challenge, Social Alpha Founder and Chief Executive Officer Manoj Kumar said: “The winners of the previous editions of Social Alpha Energy Challenge as well as many of our portfolio companies have been the recipients of several awards and follow-on funding, both at home and abroad.”
He further said,”Our energy portfolio has demonstrated the potential to avoid more than 200 million tonnes of Co2 emissions collectively by 2030, as assessed by the globally accepted Net-Zero Compatible Innovation Assessment Framework. Climate Change is the biggest threat confronting humanity today. Through this Techtonic, we are offering multistage venture development support to Clean Energy Innovators as they combat climate crisis.”
Winners in the pre-pilot category will receive physical incubation at Social Alpha-Atal Incubation Centre, set up under Atal Innovation Mission, the flagship initiative of NITI Aayog, Government of India, the company said.
Post-pilot category winners will be incubated at the Clean Energy International Incubation Centre, a joint initiative of Tata Trusts and the Government of India, and supported by Department of Biotechnology, BIRAC, Tata Power, and Tata Power-Delhi Distribution Ltd, it added.
Selected startups from both the labs will also receive full spectrum venture development and scale-up support from Social Alpha, which may include techno-commercial pilot support by Tata Power’s Pilot Accelerator of up to Rs 25 lakh per startup, scale-up support of upto Rs 1 crore per startups by Social Alpha’s SDG-7 accelerator and Sustain Plus Foundation and seed funding of up to Rs 1 crore per startup by Social Alpha, it added.
“Besides this, a number of corporations and investors are expected to join the support ecosystem as the programme progresses. Various incubators, accelerators and investors participating in the programme are expected to deploy collectively more than Rs 20 crore over a period of 24 months,” the company said. (PTI)
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