The Sustainability Mafia, a leading purpose-driven community of 60+ climate entrepreneurs, has announced the launch of ‘Sustainability Ventures’ aka ‘SusVentures’ – a groundbreaking venture creation program that aims to create 100 climate action companies within three years, i.e. by the end of 2026. 

SusVentures is a first-of-its-kind venture creation program that empowers tomorrow’s climate innovators. India is today uniquely positioned to be the global innovation leader and hotbed for climate action, and there exists a massive untapped opportunity to make climate entrepreneurship the driver for positive change. And keeping that in mind, SusVentures enables upcoming passionate entrepreneurs to identify and build their climate-tech startups dedicatedly around critical problem statements spanning across various industries that need attention on a priority basis.

The inaugural cohort of SusVentures has been kickstarted recently in collaboration with the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani), the first official university partner of the program.  In the first cohort, 50 student entrepreneurs from multiple engineering disciplines across the Hyderabad, Goa, and Pilani campuses of BITS Pilani have been enrolled into the program to build 14 Climate tech startups in sectors like Circular Economy, Energy Efficiency, EV and Solar. 

Sachin Arya, CEO, Incubation and Entrepreneurship, BITS Pilani said, “We are excited to partner with SusMafia on the SusVentures program and provide BITS Pilani students with an opportunity to solve the most critical problems in climatechange and sustainability. The partnership is an extension of our commitment to further strengthen the already thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem on campus. Together with SusMafia, we will work towards extending this program to the larger community of innovators and entrepreneurs.”

Besides a course to build on Entrepreneurial skill sets, the SusVentures program empowers innovators with ‘Idea Bank’, curated Problem Statements sourced from climate experts themselves to launch the much-needed startups. In addition, the program will match each startup with a ‘Dedicated Mentor’ who is a known entrepreneur in the domain and will support the team with expertise, market access, deep customer connections for pilots, and more. ‘Hand holding’ vis-à-vis dedicated office hours and in-class workshops are also provided so that teams are prepared to pitch to investors during ‘Pitch Day’, win grant funding, access investors’ networks, and gain further activated acceleration support.  

Speaking about the program launch, Arjun P Gupta, Director, The Sustainability Mafia said, “At SusMafia, we are all in on climate action and have a shared said, “At SusMafia, we are all in on climate action and have a shared purpose of ‘give more than get’. We are excited to launch SusVentures as our flagship program -designed and driven by industry veterans from the vibrant SusMafia community to provide activated mentorship to new climate startups.”

Notably, SusVentures has received generous philanthropic support from Rohit Rajput (Intersection Ventures), Pradip Burman (Chairman,Dabur Nepal), Mirik Gogri (Spectrum Impact), and CSR funding from Parksons Packaging Ltd, Sanghvi Movers Ltd., among others. Moreover, Theia Ventures, an official Investment Partner intends to invest 100k USD in equity funding to promising startups emerging from the program. Having received support from individuals and corporates alike, the SusVentures program has already pledged to offer a non-dilutive grant of over INR 31 lakhs to the winning startup emerging from each cohort of the program to fuel their growth. The team is currently unlocking more capital for promising startups graduating from its cohorts.

Aditya Bhat, Co-Founder, Sustainability Ventures added, “Entrepreneurship is the biggest lever while solving for the climate and the need for SusVentures to bridge market gaps and limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius is crystal clear. We believe that as we achieve our mission of creating 100 climate startups in three years, we shall bring new & innovative technologies to market, create thousands of green jobs, foster socio-economic well-being of communities and make progress in achieving SDGs. We invite partners from the corporate and investment community to collaborate with us on this mission.” 

The SusVentures program’s impressive lineup of instructors and mentors include Ameya A, a senior people leader, and founders of industry-leading climate startups including Krishnan Kasturirangan (Wastelink), Ankit Mittal (Sheru), Raju Namburi (Bridge Things), Anirudh Gupta (Climes), Anirudh Ramesh (Irasus Technologies), Varun Karasia (Satma CE), Rishika Reddy (The Mend Packaging), Kishan Karunakaran (Buyofuel), Himanshu Sharma (Theia Ventures), among others. Additionally, various distinguished industry leaders like Saurabh Kumar (GEAPP); Shyamal Kumar (Lavelle Networks), and Jason Jay (MIT School of Sustainability) have taken guest lectures so far along with Professors from BITS Pilani.

Going ahead, the SusVentures program will be offered via two formats – in collaboration with top-tier Indian universities and in-person Immersion Programs for a wider pool of applicants; including working professionals, corporate leaders, serial entrepreneurs and researchers.