Transition VC, India’s first 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. A top-down thesis-driven fund, Transition VC will make seed investments in startups across sectors undergoing transition such as New Energy, E-Mobility, Green Hydrogen, Energy Storage, Net Zero journey in Buildings and Climate-tech. With ticket size ranging from $500K to $1 Million, the VC is looking to support up to 40 early-stage startups over the next 3 years.
Bengaluru-based Transition VC recently received its SEBI approval, and is eyeing to mark the first close of the fund by the end of this calendar year. The fund was founded last year by a robust 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.
Prior to launching Transition VC, its team invested in multiple startups in the E-mobility sector including startups like Charge+Zone and Exponent Energy. While Exponent Energy is enabling rapid charging for commercial vehicles, Charge+Zone is one of the country’s largest charge point operators.
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 & it’s going to shape how people consume energy for decades to come.”
Owing to its core team’s energy transition-focused approach, Transition VC’s maiden Fund is currently seeing growing interest from Indian as well as global HNIs, family offices, and corporates specialized in strategic investments. For its LPs, the fund is looking at an invite-only pool of investors who understand this domain well and align with its vision.
Commenting on the fund’s vision, Transition VC’s General Partner, Mustafa Wajid 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.”
As per Morgan Stanley’s latest report “The New India: Why this is India’s decade”, India will attract USD 700+ Billion in energy investments over the next decade as the country accelerates its Energy Transition.
Commenting on the India opportunity, Shoeb Ali, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Transition VC said, “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.”
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.
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.
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