Former IFC executive launches USD 125M fund for health, other startup

Former South Asia head of technology investments at International Finance Corporation (IFC), Ruchira Shukla and Karthik Chandrasekar, partner at early-stage venture fund Sangam Ventures on Tuesday announced a new $125 million venture fund Synapses. Focusing on identifying and supporting STEM-based solutions for climate change and health-related challenges, the fund aligns with the Government of India’s aim to make India a global research and development (R&D) hub and driving its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

Speaking on the new fund, Ruchira Shukla, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Synapses said, “Synapses is built on the belief that science and technology hold the key to solving these challenges at scale, not just for India, but for the world. We are nurturing a new generation of audacious, path-breaking innovators and helping them build leading global technology businesses to deliver outsized financial returns.”

Synapses aims to deliver 5-7x returns at the fund level.

In August 2022, India had updated its NDC wherein it targeted to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP to 45 per cent by 2030 and 50 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030.

“But with only a sixth of the per capita emissions of the US, India needs to balance its development goals with its sustainability goals,” the company said.

According to Synapses, getting to that NCD target will require STEM innovations to enable large-scale decarbonization and resource productivity solutions for carbon emission mitigation as well as climate smart agriculture and agile health response systems for climate adaptation.

As per the Climate Policy Initiative, India needs over US$ 170 billion every year in climate finance to meet its NDCs.

Karthik Chandrasekar, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Synapses said, “The climatetech and healthtech solutions needed today sit at the intersection of STEM-innovation and agile as well as resilient, future-ready, infrastructure-like solutions that need to be deployed at utility scale. Commercialising innovations at this intersection is hard and requires deep sector immersion. We are taking on this challenge because solving for this complexity is what drives alpha and impact.” The Financial Express