Distinguished Enterprise Lecture | Building climate innovation platforms at scale – a perspective from the Global South

Speaker: Nalin Agarwal, Founding Partner at the Climate Collective Foundation (South Asia’s largest climate tech startup support platform); and, a Founding Partner at the Climate Seeds Fund (an upcoming pre-Series A VC fund for Indian climate tech startups).

Talk: Building Climate Innovation Platforms at Scale – a perspective from the Global South
This Distinguished Enterprise Lecture reflects on a journey from serial founder-entrepreneur to co-founding Climate Collective Foundation, South Asia’s largest climate tech startup platform – now expanding across the Global South.

The keynote focuses on a central question: how do we move from building successful companies to building ecosystems that consistently produce climate innovation at scale?

Drawing on real-world experience, the talk examines the role of the ecosystem orchestrator and the enterprise choices that underpin it: platform design across acceleration, capital, piloting with large incumbents, and a vibrant community; blended financial models that align philanthropic grants, corporate demand, and commercial revenues; and partnership strategies spanning government, corporates/utilities, multilaterals (e.g. UNEZA@IRENA) and academia (e.g. Undaunted@Imperial).

The talk will conclude with a forward look at the next phase of the Global South climate transition (and Climate Collective’s role in it); along with initial ideas and an open-forum discussion on collaboration opportunities with Imperial College London.

This lecture forms part of the Department of Chemical Engineering’s annual Distinguished Seminar Series 2026, and is open to departmental staff and PhD students, as well as a quota for external persons. Registrations will open soon, watch this space. 

Nalin Agarwal