Looking Back at 2025: Technical Evolution of Novel Energy and Green Planet Startups

As 2025 comes to a close, Speciale looks back on a year of strong progress across India’s clean energy and climate-focused startup ecosystem. The past year saw faster movement from research to real-world deployment, supported by better alignment between technology development, policy support, and investor capital.

India’s private clean energy sector has become one of the most dynamic parts of the country’s deep-tech landscape. Startups made meaningful advances in electric mobility, energy storage, green hydrogen, circular materials, and early-stage fusion research.

This momentum was driven by growing venture investment, closer collaboration between the public and private sectors, and clear technical milestones. Together, these factors are helping position India as an important global player in sustainable and climate-resilient technologies.

Electric Mobility: Platform Expansion and Globalisation

The electric vehicle (EV) sector crossed a major adoption threshold in FY2025, with cumulative sales exceeding 2 million units—representing ~20% year-on-year growth despite global macroeconomic and supply-chain headwinds. This growth reflects both platform maturity and increasing consumer acceptance.

Within Speciale’s portfolio, Ultraviolette Automotive continues to push the frontier of high-performance electric two-wheelers. Its flagship F77 Mach 2 motorcycle has achieved regulatory ratification and commercial traction in European markets. In parallel, the company expanded its vehicle architecture into adjacent segments with the Tesseract electric scooter and Shockwave electric enduro bike, leveraging shared powertrain and control system IP.

In September 2025, Ultraviolette launched the X-47, an “urban crossover” motorcycle, signalling continued diversification within premium EV use cases. The company’s participation in the DPIIT-backed ‘Build in Bharat’ initiative underscores increasing policy integration with indigenous hardware innovation. In December, Ultraviolette closed a $45 million growth round, led by Lingotto and Zoho, providing capital for international expansion, manufacturing scale-up, and platform R&D.

Advanced Air Mobility: eVTOL Commercialisation Pathways

The ePlane Company achieved a landmark commercial milestone by securing a $1 billion agreement to deliver 788 eVTOL air ambulances to ICATT. This deal represents one of the largest global commitments to electric vertical take-off and landing platforms for emergency medical services.

Following its $14 million Series B in November 2024, the Chennai-based startup progressed toward full-scale prototype validation and is preparing for flight testing. Its work highlights India’s emerging role in advanced air mobility, combining aerostructures, distributed electric propulsion, and avionics systems under stringent certification pathways.

Green Hydrogen: Electrochemical Innovation and Cost Reduction

The green hydrogen sector gained structural momentum following the government’s ₹100 crore startup support scheme, announced in September 2025. The scheme provides grants of up to ₹5 crore per project across hydrogen production, storage, and utilisation technologies, catalysing early-stage experimentation and pilot deployments.

Newtrace, an early innovator in the space, is developing a membrane-less electrolyser architecture designed to reduce balance-of-system complexity and capital costs. By combining novel electrocatalyst formulations with system-level design efficiencies, Newtrace aims to reduce green hydrogen production costs by up to 60%. The company previously raised $5.65 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital India and Aavishkaar Capital.

The broader ecosystem’s momentum was evident at the inaugural Green Hydrogen R&D Conference, where 25 startups showcased technologies spanning AI-driven electrolyser optimisation, biological hydrogen pathways, and next-generation storage solutions.

With India targeting 5 million metric tonnes per annum of green hydrogen production by 2030, private startups are positioned to address a projected ₹8 lakh crore investment opportunity, spanning equipment manufacturing, infrastructure, and downstream industrial adoption.

Energy Storage: Alternatives to Lithium-Ion

Sthyr Energy, a Chennai-based startup, represents the next generation of long-duration energy storage technologies. Backed by $1 million in seed funding led by Speciale, the company is commercialising zinc–air battery systems designed to mitigate renewable energy curtailment.

By storing surplus energy as metallic zinc, Sthyr’s architecture offers advantages in safety, material abundance, and cost relative to lithium-ion systems—particularly for stationary grid-scale applications.

Circularity and Materials Recovery

Metastable Materials is advancing sustainable battery recycling through a chemical-free, integrated carbothermal reduction process, achieving >90% recovery of critical battery materials. The Bengaluru-based startup operates a 21,000 sq. ft. processing facility with an annual throughput capacity of 1,500 tonnes.

Backed by Sequoia India’s Surge and other institutional investors, Metastable addresses a critical bottleneck in the EV value chain by reducing reliance on imported critical minerals and lowering the environmental footprint of battery manufacturing.

Frontier Energy: Nuclear Fusion R&D

Anubal Fusion has emerged as India’s first nuclear fusion startup, securing pre-seed funding from Speciale Invest in 2024. Founded by Dr Pravin Kini, the company is pursuing inertial confinement fusion (ICF) using high-powered laser systems.

Anubal collaborates with TIFR Hyderabad and IIT Madras, leveraging TIFR’s newly operational 1-petawatt laser facility. The company is transitioning from computational modelling and simulations toward experimental validation, with plans to raise additional capital to support this phase.

Policy, Capital, and System Convergence

Green energy investment in India continues to broaden beyond renewables into e-mobility, low-carbon fuels, energy storage, and circular manufacturing. Emerging domains such as green hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) are now attracting sustained venture and strategic capital.

This growth is reinforced by policy frameworks, including FAME-II, the National Green Hydrogen Mission, and international cooperation platforms such as the EU–India Trade and Technology Council, which are enabling cross-border collaboration and technology transfer.

Outlook

The convergence of commercially mature platforms, frontier R&D, and coordinated policy support positions India’s private clean-energy sector at the forefront of the global sustainability transition. Deep-tech startups are increasingly defining the pathway toward an energy-abundant, carbon-neutral future, with 2025 marking a pivotal inflexion point in both technological credibility and global relevance.