Funding the next generation of tech giants | Climate Angels
The veteran VC who abandoned lucrative consumer internet in 2017 to build India's largest climate-focused angel fund - and why he believes climate tech will create the next trillion-dollar companies
In a glass-walled conference room in Gurugram, 2017, Shailesh Vickram Singh made an announcement that would define his legacy and reshape an entire industry. The veteran venture capitalist, fresh off eight successful years at SeedFund, declared he was abandoning the lucrative consumer internet sector to focus exclusively on climate technology. The reaction was swift and skeptical.
"When I thought of Massive in 2017, Climate was a distant word and the majority of people had this expression 'Climate, are you serious'!!!"
Six years later, Singh's contrarian bet has been vindicated in spectacular fashion. Climate investing in India crossed $1.2 billion in 2023, according to YourStory, with more than a dozen funds actively investing in the sector. Singh's Climate Angels, now India's largest climate-focused angel fund, has made over 20 investments and built what many consider the country's most comprehensive climate tech ecosystem.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
The Making of a Pattern Recognition Machine
Singh's journey to climate tech began long before it was fashionable, rooted in a career spanning over 25 years of entrepreneurship and venture investing. His story reads like a masterclass in timing, persistence, and the art of building ecosystems before markets mature.
In 1999, at just 25, Singh found himself managing investments at UTI Mutual Fund, India's largest mutual fund with assets exceeding $15 billion. His team of six deployed between ₹200-500 crores monthly into unlisted markets, giving Singh unprecedented access to India's emerging corporate landscape.
"UTI was the big daddy. Whether it's Anil Ambani or Azim Premji or the Shrirams, everybody used to come. Every balance sheet used to have a clause - investment from UTI. There's not a company in India whose file was not in UTI."
But Singh was a born entrepreneur. Even in college, he had run a comic book rental library and attempted an advertising agency called "SVS AD" (Shailesh Vickram Singh Associate Design). The dot-com boom of 2000 proved irresistible.
The CoolAvenues Phenomenon: Viral Before Twitter
Singh's first major entrepreneurial venture, CoolAvenues, offers a fascinating glimpse into pre-social media viral marketing. Founded in 2000 with his UTI colleague, the MBA job portal achieved something remarkable: massive scale without venture funding.
Their breakthrough moment came during IIM Ahmedabad's placement season. Singh and his partner stationed themselves on campus, live-updating their website with job offers as they were announced. The innovation was simple but revolutionary for 2000.
"As the offers were given, we were constantly updating on the website and this went viral. The Lehman Brothers guy called his team and said, 'You have not made any offer and Goldman has made 10 offers. What are you doing?' He said, 'How do you know?' He said, 'I'm watching on CoolAvenues.'"
The stunt catapulted CoolAvenues to national prominence. CNN and Newsweek covered the company. Business Today partnered with them for MBA placement surveys. Most remarkably, they achieved profitability within six months, spending less than ₹1 lakh total - a stark contrast to today's capital-intensive startups.
"We achieved all this without zero marketing. The kind of servers we managed, we managed more traffic with much less tech than something with today's startups. I think they are much overloaded. Five founders, raising $5 million before doing anything. Here we did the whole thing without even a single penny spending."
SeedFund Years: The Anti-Portfolio That Built an Ecosystem
After exiting CoolAvenues in 2003, Singh eventually joined SeedFund in 2011, one of India's pioneering venture capital firms. Under founders Mahesh Murthy and Praveen Gandhi, SeedFund managed $70 million across two funds and became the go-to destination for early-stage startups.
Singh's tenure at SeedFund coincided with the explosion of India's startup ecosystem. Every major company that would later become a unicorn passed through their doors - creating what Singh calls an "anti-portfolio" of legendary proportions.
"Every company in India used to come to SeedFund because we were the only ones those days. So every company that was anti-portfolio - there's Flipkart, Snapdeal, you name the company, it was anti-portfolio."
The most painful near-miss was LensKart. Singh spent months evaluating the eyewear startup, convinced it represented the perfect e-commerce model: easy to ship, large market, great business fundamentals. But internal deliberations dragged on too long.
"Piyush was very keen to have us, but the money was high. So I told Piyush you should go with the money which is larger, though we really want to do it. But since that guy is giving you almost four times more, so you should go ahead with that."
LensKart went on to achieve a multi-billion dollar valuation. But SeedFund did back RedBus, which sold profitably to Ibibo (later acquired by MakeMyTrip) after growing from one ticket per week to 50,000 tickets daily.
The Great Awakening: Why Consumer Internet Hit a Wall
By 2017, Singh had grown disillusioned with consumer internet investing. His thesis was radical but prescient: the era of giant internet startups was ending.
"I'm going to make a very strong statement, which is consumer internet is dead. The only thing is probably VCs or founders are not aware because the fundamental thing is it is not fitting into VCs' model system. The game is over."
Singh's argument rests on the concept of economic moats. In the early internet era, there were "air pockets" where nimble startups could build defensible businesses before incumbents caught up. But once giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon fully migrated to cloud computing, they began systematically eating smaller players' market share.
"Look at Calendly - Microsoft Teams has consumed it. Look at Zoom calls versus Microsoft Teams invites today. It is eating it up. Tell me a single business where these companies have any edge."
The data supports Singh's thesis. Uber, despite raising over $20 billion and having no physical assets, still struggles with profitability. The fundamental economics don't work when platforms extract 30% commissions but can't generate positive cash flow.
"For a company like Uber - no cars but they have raised probably $20 billion and still not making money. So the joke is on Uber, not about the business model."
Climate Tech: The New Oil Rush
While disillusioned with consumer internet, Singh saw massive opportunity in climate technology. His thesis was elegantly simple: climate change represents primarily an engineering problem requiring innovative solutions.
"If you look at the whole engineering model today, the only engineering which has grown like crazy is IT. But if you look at basic engineering, it is way it was in 1800."
Singh illustrates this with a thought experiment: bring a computer engineer from 1980 to today, and they wouldn't recognize modern computing. But bring a power plant engineer from 1880 to any current facility, and they'd understand the basic turbine and generation principles immediately.
"The challenge is basic engineering has not seen the technology shift which IT has seen because basic engineering globally was not a pain point. Nobody bothered to create a fuel which can give you 100 miles per gallon."
Today's resource-constrained world creates massive opportunities for companies that can make existing systems faster, better, and cheaper while reducing environmental impact. Tesla proved this thesis, commanding premium pricing while building a $800+ billion market capitalization.
Building the Ecosystem: Five Years of Patient Capital
Rather than immediately launching a large fund, Singh spent five years (2017-2022) building climate tech infrastructure. This patient approach mirrors how early internet ecosystem builders like TiE and IAN laid groundwork for India's startup boom.
"In the finance business, you cannot have ownership of the market. If you're the only financier, then the market will fall apart because you will end up with 100% of the risk of the market."
Singh's ecosystem building included:
Running multiple corporate innovation programs with UNEP, Amazon AWS, and other partners
Supporting 400+ startups with mentorship and industry connections
Creating Climate Angels angel investment platform with no fees for founders
Establishing Massive Earth Foundation as a non-profit research and policy arm
The United Nations partnership proved particularly valuable. The LowCarbon.Earth accelerator, launched with UNEP, has supported over 1,000 startups across the Asia-Pacific region through 12-week programs culminating in demo days in Bangkok.
The $150 Million Paytm Partnership
In 2018, Singh announced the Massive Fund, a $150 million climate-focused vehicle in partnership with Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The collaboration brought together Singh's sector expertise with Sharma's operational success and "Patron for Clean Air" designation from UN Environment.
"There is an urgent need to bring 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 at scale,"
Sharma announced at the launch.
The fund represented India's first stage-agnostic, sector-focused climate vehicle, targeting investments of ₹2-4 crores with the flexibility to go up to ₹100+ crores for later-stage opportunities.
The Portfolio: From Soap to Solar
Climate Angels has deployed capital across 20+ companies spanning multiple verticals. Singh's investment approach prioritizes sustainability solutions that don't require more than 10% premium pricing.
Consumer Products: BECO, a sustainable home cleaning brand, creates biodegradable detergents and paper products. Singh sees potential to build a ₹1,000+ crore brand competing with Surf Excel's ₹7,000-8,000 crore market.
"If you can create a product which is sustainable, but not more than 10% premium, then you are a winner."
Industrial Solutions: One portfolio company has developed pollution-free lead acid battery recycling technology, earning licenses to operate in Singapore and the US - jurisdictions that haven't approved new lead recycling facilities in 30-40 years due to environmental concerns.
EV Infrastructure: While most investors focused on four-wheeler charging, Singh backed companies building two-wheeler and three-wheeler infrastructure, recognizing India's unique transportation patterns.
Air Pollution: Pran has developed ionization technology for large industrial spaces, running trials with Tata Steel and jewelry manufacturers where traditional filters become unusable within minutes.
Destroying Impact Fund Orthodoxy
Singh reserves his harshest criticism for traditional impact funds, arguing they've damaged climate innovation by positioning it as charity rather than profitable enterprise.
"The biggest disservice has been done by impact guys themselves. The first thing they tell investors: 'Boss, we are impact fund. So don't ask for returns from us.' So when you say impact, what investor hears is there's no return."
This positioning creates a vicious cycle where climate solutions are perceived as inherently unprofitable, limiting capital flow and talent attraction. Singh argues Tesla's success proves the opposite - sustainable solutions can command premium pricing when they deliver superior performance.
"Do you need to measure impact of Tesla? It's obvious. Every Tesla sold, that much chemical pollution is gone away. You don't need to spend 5% to create a 30-page report on that."
The Street Fighter Philosophy
Singh's founder evaluation framework prioritizes grit and capital efficiency over credentials. He looks for entrepreneurs who can achieve results with one-fifth the typical capital requirements.
"You're not looking for a suited guy. You are basically looking at a street fighter who can fight. Whether this guy will do it himself or will get a consultant to do it. The hustle will always hack it."
This philosophy stems from his own bootstrap experience with CoolAvenues, where extreme capital efficiency forced creative solutions and rapid iteration.
"At the end of the day, what is a startup? It's about creating X with 0.2X resources, not X equals X. So how frugal they are, how much hustle they have - you basically want that kind of quality."
The Future Map: India's Climate Unicorns
While Singh's portfolio hasn't yet produced unicorn valuations, several companies show promising trajectories. More importantly, he's building the infrastructure for climate tech to become India's next major export category, similar to IT services.
Climate investing in India has grown from near-zero in 2017 to $1.2 billion in 2023. Singh predicts the sector will produce its first unicorns within the next 5-10 years as resource constraints intensify and engineering talent migrates from saturated IT markets to physical world problems.
"For once, it was good to come early!"
The ecosystem Singh has built - spanning 400+ corporate partners, UN collaborations, and comprehensive founder support - positions Climate Angels to benefit from this wave regardless of which specific companies achieve breakthrough valuations.
Legacy in the Making
Singh's transformation from dot-com entrepreneur to climate tech pioneer illustrates the patient capital required to build new industries. Like the early internet entrepreneurs who laid foundations for today's unicorns, Singh has spent years building infrastructure before focusing on returns.
His contrarian thesis on consumer internet's decline and climate tech's rise has largely been validated. The question now is whether his portfolio can produce the billion-dollar companies needed to complete his vision of climate technology as India's next great economic transformation.
For entrepreneurs considering climate tech, Singh's journey offers both inspiration and practical frameworks. The sector demands engineering-heavy solutions, patient capital, and founders willing to solve hard problems rather than pursue quick exits. But for those who can navigate these challenges, the opportunities may be as transformational as the early internet boom.
What do you think about Singh's thesis that consumer internet is "dead" while climate tech represents the next trillion-dollar opportunity? Have you seen similar ecosystem-building approaches in other emerging sectors? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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