YES Bank, one of India’s largest private sector lenders, is in the process of selecting 3-10 green energy start-ups that it will mentor and scale up through its new Cleantech Accelerator platform launched in association with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

The select start-ups will get access to mentorship, scaling up and funding of up to $1 million per start-up.

‘Cleantech application’

“We have a database of 500-600 start-ups. We are filtering it to find specific cleantech companies or those having a cleantech application. For example, if we think of smart metering, it could have data analytics at the backend,” Amit Shah, Country Head, Corporate Strategy, YES Bank, told BusinessLine . YES Bank will also provide a grant of maximum ₹20 lakh per start-up for pilot or proof of concept at the client cite.

“A lot of strips fail because they don’t have enough funds to do proof of concept,” Shah said.

Tie-ups for testing

The solutions developed by start-ups selected for Cleantech Accelerator will be tested in the real environment by YES Bank’s exiting clients — renewable companies keen on adopting innovations to improve their operations or products, Shah added.

YES Bank has partnered with several renewable industry players, including the US-based PV modules manufacturer First Solar, Hyderabad-based solar developer Freyr Energy and Grasim, a part of Aditya Birla Group, for this programme.

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