Google Picks Four Indian Startups For Debut AI-For-Climate Accelerator In APAC
Google has picked four Indian startups for its debut
AI-focused accelerator, Google DeepMind Accelerator: AI for the Planet (APAC),
aimed at addressing urgent environmental challenges using artificial
intelligence.
The
four startups — Terrastack, Varaha Climate, Farmers for Forests and Climitra
Carbon — will join a cohort of 16 startups operating across the Asia Pacific
(APAC) region. Over the next three months, these startups will receive access
to the latest Google AI stack, tailored technical support and expert mentorship
to scale their sustainability-focused AI solutions, the company said.
Kicking
off this week with a hands-on bootcamp in Singapore, the programme, which
supports startups, nonprofits, and research teams, will help them advance their
ideas using frontier AI models — like AnthroKrishi, ForestCast, AlphaEarth
Foundations, SpeciesNet, and Perch — to tackle urgent environmental challenges,
Google APAC regional sustainability head Spencer Low and APAC developer
ecosystems head Sami Kizibash said in a blog post on September 7.
Google
is expanding its climate initiatives in India across solar, clean energy,
agriculture and research. It is scaling its AI-powered Solar API across 300
million Indian rooftops to help automate roof surveys and solar layouts.
Besides,
it has signed a four-year agreement with climate tech startup Mitti Labs to
supply 1 million carbon credits through 2030, with financial terms undisclosed.
The fixed offtake will cover credits generated from rice farming projects
across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, where Mitti Labs currently
covers more than 1 lakh hectares.
The
startup uses alternate wetting and drying (AWD) to reduce methane emissions and
water use in rice cultivation, while sharing carbon-credit revenue with
farmers. Its AI-powered platform uses satellite data, remote sensing, field
measurements and biogeochemical models to track emissions and water savings.
The
company also signed a 150 MW long-term solar power agreement with ReNew Power
in Rajasthan to address supply chain emissions, taking its announced Scope 3
solar projects in India to 300 MW.
Climitra
Carbon, founded in 2025 by Shubhankar Mihir Seth, Shaurya Sharma and Aryaman
Mihir Seth and headquartered in Delhi NCR, focuses on converting waste biomass
into industrial-grade bio-coal and biochar. Its bio-coal is designed as a 1:1
replacement for fossil coal in steelmaking, while it focuses on permanent
carbon dioxide removal under its biochar business.
Farmers
for Forests (F4F), founded in 2019 by Krutika Ravishankar, Aditya Avinashe and
Arti Dhar and headquartered in Pune, uses a payment for ecosystem services
(PES) approach to incentivise farmers and communities to convert degraded land
into biodiverse forests. Its programmes cover agroforestry, forest protection
and restoration, urban biodiversity, human-elephant conflict prevention and climate/ecology
education.
Terrastack,
founded in 2024 by Aaryan Dangi and Milind Sohoni and headquartered in Mumbai,
is building a geospatial data platform for rural land intelligence and
transactions, combining satellite imagery, mapping tools and digital land
records to structure land information. Its platform focuses on digitising land
boundaries and ownership, enabling data analysis for governments and
enterprises, and simplifying land verification, transactions and governance.
Varaha
Climate, founded in 2022 by Madhur Jain, Ankita Garg and Vishal Kuchanur and
headquartered in Delhi NCR, is a WestBridge-backed startup that operates carbon
dioxide removal projects across India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Ivory
Coast. It works with smallholder farmers to promote regenerative agriculture
and agroforestry, generating carbon credits that businesses can use to offset
emissions. It also plans to partner with industrial companies, offering digital
monitoring, reporting and verification and carbon-credit origination services.
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