
The ₹1,150 Crore Startup That India's Venture Capitalists Forgot to Notice: How Three IIT Friends Spent 16 Years Building a Profitable Climate-Tech Giant While Everyone Chased Quick Commerce
In 2010, three friends from IIT Kharagpur stood at the threshold of a decision that would define the rest of their lives. Devendra Gupta had a job offer from a multinational corporation. Prateek Singhal had an offer from a prestigious foreign university. Vivek Pandey had a path that looked, to everyone who knew him, like the safe, sensible, upward trajectory of an engineering graduate from one of India's finest institutions. The offers were good. The paths were clear. The alternative was to start a company that made solar-powered pumps for farmers—a category that did not exist, in a market that had never heard of it, with no venture capital, no government incentives, and no guarantee that anyone would buy what they built.








