Transition VC, an Energy Transition-focused VC fund, has launched its maiden fund with a target corpus of Rs 400 crore, which also includes a greenshoe option of Rs 200 crore.
With ticket size ranging from $500K to $1 million, the Bengaluru-based VC firm is looking to support up to 40 early-stage startups over the next three years. Transition VC will make seed investments in startups across sectors undergoing transition such as E-Mobility, green hydrogen, energy storage, net zero journey in buildings, and climate-tech.
In addition to investments in Indian startups, the fund will also allocate 25% of the fund value for global startups. For its global investments, Transition VC has a concentrated strategy to invest in developed market products that could also be introduced to an emerging market like India.
Speaking on the fund launch, Raiyaan Shingati, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Transition VC, said,
“Climate Change & Energy Transition is a business opportunity, as they demand reinvention of every segment of the industry. We are at the beginning of a new era! Major shifts like this don’t come around that often, but we are starting to see one now and it’s going to shape how people consume energy for decades to come.”
The fund was founded last year by a team of marquee entrepreneurs and business professionals such as Raiyaan Shingati, Mohammed Shoeb Ali, Mustafa Wajid, Naresh V Narasimhan, Tejas Goenka, Saif Qureishi, and Rajesh Doshi. The team comes with domain expertise in the energy transition sector, and has extensive experience in operating, building, and selling businesses, coupled with a stellar investment track record.
The fund is led by Raiyaan and Shoeb; while Raiyaan comes with extensive experience in VC and global private equity, Shoeb’s experience encompasses investment banking and venture capital.
The venture recently received SEBI approval, and is eyeing to mark the first close of the fund by the end of this calendar year.
Commenting on the fund’s vision, Mustafa Wajid, Transition VC’s General Partner, said, “Our objective is to bring together the best engineers, innovators, and like-minded partners who can help build a better future for all. With this fund, we shall ignite and amplify their entrepreneurial capabilities to develop and deploy sustainable solutions that enable a decarbonised world and solve key energy challenges. To support such startup teams at a pivotal juncture in their entrepreneurial journey, we will deploy a unique combination of capital and competencies at seed stages and help them scale up meaningfully.”
“We are optimistic and we see an opportunity of more than 12 unicorns coming from India in this decade just in the Energy Transition & ClimateTech space,” added Shoeb Ali, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Transition VC.
Transition VC has a wide network of incubators, accelerators, fellow VCs, and corporates in the new energy domain who can collaboratively work with tech startups to run pilots and help them grow. With these networks, the fund aims to add immense value to its overall proposition, and facilitate better GTM, user acquisition, product distribution, hiring, and growth strategy for its portfolio startups.
