Climate Angels: India's first angel network built for climate-tech founders

Climate Angels is India's first climate-focused angel investment network — a SEBI-registered Category I AIF that channels early-stage capital into startups fighting pollution and climate change. Launched in 2020 by Noida-based incubator GoMassive Earth Network, it gives individual angel investors curated deal flow into climate-tech rounds led by marquee institutions, with the flexibility of deal-by-deal investing rather than a blind-pool fund.

Investment thesis

Climate Angels bets that India's climate transition — clean energy, sustainable mobility, circular economy, carbon capture, water, food and cities — is one of the decade's great wealth-creation opportunities as well as an ecological imperative. Its model is the syndicate: members can join rounds led by marquee institutional investors or lead their own syndicates on the platform. Backers at launch included Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Apollo Global partner Nipun Sahni, SeedFund founding partner Praveen Gandhi, Stanford Angels founder Paula Mariwala and DS Group as corporate investor.

Funds, stages and cheque sizes

Climate Angels operates as an angel fund (SEBI Category I AIF) investing in early-stage startups in India and the US. At launch it planned to invest up to Rs 10 crore across 10 climate-tech startups over six years via syndicates, and by mid-2022 it had made 7 investments — spanning circular economy, eco D2C brands, lead recycling, EV battery swapping, filterless air purifiers, rooftop solar and EV charging — with a stated ambition of 15–18 startups and ₹100+ crore deployed over the following ~16 months. Its official site now states 20+ climate-focused startups in its portfolio. A total fund corpus figure is not publicly disclosed.

Notable portfolio

Verifiable portfolio names include Ace Green Recycling, Beco, Clean Electric, Digital Paani, ElectricPe, INDRA, Matter, Milo Drive, PeelOn, Pehle Jaisa and Carbon Masters — covering batteries, circular economy, water, EV charging and carbon. An independent tracker counts 13 portfolio companies across 18 investments.

People

Climate Angels was founded by Shailesh Vickram Singh, founder of GoMassive (which sponsors the fund) — previously an Executive Director at SeedFund (a $54 million VC fund) and Managing Director at a $170 million private-equity fund, with an MBA from IIM Lucknow and a B.Tech from GB Pant University, and a speaker at the UN Environment Assembly. Its Investment Committee includes Gaurav Monga, an Investment Manager with 28+ years in real estate and banking including 13 years at ABN AMRO and ING across Asia. (Note: a separate US-based entity at climateangels.vc is unrelated to the Indian network.)

Programmes, credits and perks

Beyond investing, Climate Angels runs a corporate open-innovation programme and LowCarbon.Earth, an accelerator in partnership with UNEP — giving portfolio founders structured access to corporate partners and global climate institutions, not just capital.

How to engage

Climate-tech founders can explore the network at climateangels.in. The syndicate model suits early-stage companies seeking smart angel capital alongside — or ahead of — institutional rounds; investors with a climate thesis can join the network for curated deal flow.