Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and VC investor Shailesh Vickram Singh launch green fund

Paytm’s CEO Vijay Shankar Sharma utilized the occasion of the World Environment Day on June 5 to make an announcement about setting up a dedicated green fund called ‘Massive Fund’. He will be joined in this effort by Shailesh Vickram Singh, a known venture capitalist and also an entrepreneur in his own right.

The duo will set up a $150 million fund to be named Massive Fund and will make investments in startups that aim at solving many of the environmental pollution-related problems being faced in the country. These can include air, water and other forms of pollution and the target recipients can even be companies and individuals who have the right ideas and plans to work in this area. They have mentioned the scope and areas as, food and agriculture, air and water pollution, renewable energy, recyclables such as e-waste and plastic, mobility, and sustainable development. This environment protection fund will also look at matching its goals with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Massive Fund may also initiate dialogue with research bodies, development institutions and experts in the academic field who can identify viable and useful projects that need to be funded on priority. The investors will fund their corpus by tapping institutional investors and high net-worth individuals.

In order for the fund to get going and with the objective of raising the awareness among the innovating community, an incubator, named GoMassive has also been already launched. It will hold orientation sessions in major cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru and they have roped in NRDC, IIT-Delhi and IIM-Lucknow, besides Sustainable India Finance Facility (SIFF) to help them with organizing these sessions and to bring in the targeted persons.

Vijay Sharma believes technology can be the solution to many of the environmental problems and if it requires funding to develop the solutions, their Massive Fund will be there to offer their hand of support and encourage the innovators to realize their dreams and bright ideas.