Ajay Menon of Greenr Sustainability Accelerator on Scaling Green Startups, Impact-Driven Support, and Building a Sustainable Ecosystem

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky speaks with Ajay Menon, Senior Practice Lead at TechnoServe India and Program Director of the Greenr Sustainability Accelerator, who reflects on a year of empowering green small and growing businesses (SGBs) across India. Menon shares how Greenr evolved in 2025 to provide holistic support, from business training and mentorship to funding linkages and impact measurement, helping startups address critical environmental challenges in sectors like waste management, renewable energy, clean tech, and sustainable agriculture. He discusses the accelerator’s approach to bridging funding gaps, enabling technology adoption, and building market access, as well as the role of strategic partnerships, impact scorecards, and a peer-driven network in driving tangible economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Menon also offers insights into the evolving green startup ecosystem in India, challenges faced by eco-entrepreneurs, and Greenr’s vision for expanding its reach, service offerings, and team to foster a more inclusive and scalable green economy.

StartupTalky: What service does Greenr Sustainability Accelerator provide? What was the motivation/vision with which you started?

Ajay Menon: The Greenr Sustainability Accelerator is designed to nurture and scale green small and growing businesses. Supported by the IKEA Foundation and Visa Foundation, the program aims to unlock the potential of approximately 350+ Green SGBs (small and growing businesses) solving problems sectors such as waste management, textile, food & agriculture, clean tech, renewable energy, green construction, and feminine hygiene.

Through a comprehensive support model, the program provides tailored business and management training, one-on-one advisory, and access to specialized green consultants. It also facilitates funding linkages, mentorship from industry leaders, and peer networks to strengthen their growth and impact. Participants receive guidance on adopting green technologies, measuring environmental outcomes, and building strategic partnerships.

Our motivation stems from a clear vision, to cultivate a robust green entrepreneurship ecosystem across India. We recognize the immense potential for businesses that not only offer innovative solutions but also directly address critical environmental problems. 

StartupTalky: What new services have been added in the past year? What is/are the USP/s of your service?

Ajay Menon: Our third cohort of green startups - a total of 150 businesses! Selected from 400 applications, our 2025 cohort features startups including businesses that sell sustainable chewing gum, technology-driven waste management solutions, innovations in agroforestry and the electric vehicle sector. 

The program - with zero fee and zero equity - offers a year-long, fully funded accelerator that provides:

> A dedicated Business Advisor to work with businesses 1:1 for a minimum of 12 months> Expert masterclasses & B-school upskilling to sharpen their business strategy> Green financing opportunities (debt, equity, and grants) to fuel their growth> A powerful network of 200+ sustainability-driven startups to collaborate with (from prior cohorts)> Environmental impact assessment to help startups understand, improve and showcase their impact

Apart from this, our USP also includes:

• Holistic Support Model: We go beyond mere funding to offer tailored business and management training, and one-on-one advisory, ensuring founders are skilled in developing resilient business plans and gain confidence to take strategic decisions.
• Strategic Partnerships: Backed by global stalwarts like the IKEA Foundation and Visa Foundation, we offer unparalleled access to resources and expertise, including dedicated support for women-led green startups.
• Tangible Impact Measurement: Our Environmental Impact Scorecards provide a standardized, rigorous method for startups to quantify their environmental contributions, a crucial differentiator in the green economy.
• Proven Track Record: Milestones achieved for just the first two cohorts include facilitating $16 million in funding, clocking an average 51% revenue increase and over 20% increase in jobs created. With 350+ startups supported across 106 cities, we demonstrate a significant ability to foster growth and resilience, at scale.

StartupTalky: How has the industry you are in changed in recent years and how has Greenr Sustainability Accelerator adapted to these changes?

Ajay Menon: The green startup landscape has seen significant shifts, primarily in the recognition of unique challenges these businesses face. We've observed persistent hurdles such as nascent market demand, where consumers' ecological intentions don't always translate into purchasing actions, leading to higher customer acquisition costs. There's also been a prevalent issue of limited access to advanced green technologies, coupled with significant funding gaps due to high upfront costs and a scarcity of flexible funding mechanisms like grants and impact investments. Furthermore, many green entrepreneurs often lack specialized business, management, sales & marketing expertise, and also face difficulties in quantifying their environmental impact effectively.

Greenr has actively adapted by designing and applying incremental application of our learnings that confronts these realities. We provide intensive market access facilitation, helping startups identify new customer segments and refine their go-to-market strategies. Our network offers expertise in green technologies, and we actively bridge funding gaps by facilitating various forms of capital. We equip entrepreneurs with essential business skills through training and advisory, and crucially, empower them to measure and communicate their environmental contributions through our impact scorecards, turning impact into a growth driver. All of our support is tailored to the maturity stage of the startup in the Greenr Accelerator Program.

StartupTalky: What key metrics do you track to check the Greenr Sustainability Accelerator growth and performance?

Ajay Menon: Our program’s effectiveness is dependent on the overall impact we’re able to have on the startups’ growth and journey. Over a span of 36 months, we expect our supported businesses to achieve specific milestones that reflect our program's value. These include:

• Economic Growth: A minimum of 30% increase in annual revenue for our cohort companies, signaling improved market penetration and financial health.
• Social Impact: A 20% increase in job creation, focusing on the provision of decent and inclusive employment opportunities.
• Environmental Outcomes: Measurable contributions to sustainability, such as reductions in carbon emissions, waste diversion from landfills, and water conservation.

StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges your Greenr Sustainability Accelerator faced in the past year and how did you overcome them?

Ajay Menon: As an accelerator focused on green businesses, the challenges we inherently face are often mirror images of those confronting the startups we support. In the past year, the most significant hurdles for the green sector, which we constantly aim to support our startups with, include: 

• Immature Markets: High customer acquisition costs and challenges in creating consumer demand.
• Intention-Action Gap: Consumer hesitation to translate eco-conscious intent into action.
• Limited Technological Access: Difficulty in adopting advanced green technologies.
• Inadequate Financing: High upfront costs and limited access to flexible funding models like grants and impact investments.
• Skill Gaps: Lack of business, management, and marketing expertise among entrepreneurs.
• Impact Measurement: Difficulty in quantifying/measuring and monitoring their own emissions in order to leverage environmental impact for growth.

StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack that you pulled off.

Ajay Menon: Our core marketing strategy is to spotlight the real-world impact and success stories of the startups we support through organic channels such as social media, case studies, and blogs. We believe that the growth of our businesses is the strongest proof of Greenr’s value.

Event partnerships have been another powerful lever. By collaborating with ecosystem players as a Network and Outreach Partner, we create opportunities for both Greenr and our startups to showcase their work. This not only opens doors for greater visibility but also significantly amplifies our reach and credibility across investors, corporates, and other ecosystem partners.

StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in your industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you seen between India and the world?

Ajay Menon: In India, the opportunities for growth in the green industry are immense and rapidly expanding. We envision a future where over 1,000 green MSMEs are thriving across more than 200 cities, encompassing Tier I, II, and III regions. There's significant potential to mobilize over $100 million in sustainable finance from both private and government sources. The increasing national focus on climate action, coupled with a large and diverse population, presents a fertile ground for green solutions addressing everything from waste management and sustainable agriculture to energy transition and circular economy models. The rapid urbanization and development in India also present unique opportunities for adopting sustainable practices at scale, potentially leapfrogging older, less sustainable models.

StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, service offering, and team base in the future?

Ajay Menon: Our future expansion plans are ambitious and multi-faceted, aiming to evolve from a focused accelerator into a continuous, national-level support ecosystem for green enterprises.

• Customer Expansion: We aim to significantly broaden our reach to support over 1,000 green MSMEs across more than 200 cities, ensuring geographically diverse participation that includes Tier I, II, and III regions.
• Service Offering Expansion: We plan to move beyond a cohort-based model to offer continuous, end-to-end support that covers every stage of a green enterprise's journey. This includes deepening capacity building through dedicated partners in business development, technology, and finance, and strengthening linkages with policy makers, capital providers, and markets. We also emphasize gender-responsive and regionally diverse participation to foster a more inclusive green economy.
• Team Base Expansion: While not explicitly detailed, achieving this scale will inherently require a significant expansion of our team, comprising experts in business advisory, sustainability, technology, and program management, to deliver the high-quality, continuous support envisioned.

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