Paytm’s founder teams up with venture capitalist to invest $150 million via green fund
BENGALURU: Paytm’s founder & CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and venture capitalist, Shailesh Vickram Singh, have teamed to launch a fund aimed at investing $150 million in sectors like food, agriculture, pollution, renewable energy in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Massive Fund, as it’s being called, aims to raise capital from institutional investors as well as high net worth individual investors to shore up the $150 million corpus.
“This fund will be looking at companies, which are employing deep science to solve issues in day to day life. We have already identified 10 companies we would like to invest in. For instance one company is looking at reducing the pollution emanating from diesel vehicles, another company is involved in bio gas. Then another firm has come up with this fantastic idea of food forests — so there’s a lot we are looking at pesticide-free food, biodegradable packing,” said Singh.
A stage-agnostic fund, it will focus on startups and established companies looking at building a sustainable environment. “We’d also like to build an ecosystem to combat pollution by roping in academia, R&D labs, mentors, professionals and venture funds across the country,” said Singh. The fund has formed an incubator called “GoMassive” which is working with institutions such as NRDC, IIT-Delhi, IIM-Lucknow and Sustainable India Finance Facility (SIFF). GoMassive is running boot camps and currently conducting hackathons across Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bangalore to groom young startup teams.
“There is an urgent need for bringing in technological solutions for reducing pollution. Through this initiative, we will provide adequate funding for innovations that can reduce air, water and plastic pollution efficiently on the scale. Our efforts, through this fund, will be to ensure that capital does not get in the way for innovative solutions to beating pollution,” said Paytm’s Sharma.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes
