Climatetech startup Aurassure has bagged INR 25 Cr ($2.8 Mn) in a pre-series A round led by Zerodha’s VC arm Rainmatter and existing investor Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from listed Manganese alloys manufacturer, Maithan Alloys.
Founded in 2022 by Akanksha Priyadarshini and Vamsi Krishna, the Bhubaneswar-based startup develops sensor-based monitoring, analysis, reporting, and tracking (SMART) devices to collect and analyse real-time data across parameters like air quality, weather, and floods.
The data collected from the devices allows the startup to predict short-range and long-range forecasts, enabling urban heat island mapping as well as setting up flood risk alerts, among other environmental alerts.
Thus, entities associated in the business of construction, industrial businesses, among others, act on climatic risks promptly. Aurassure operates across 200 Indian cities and has installed 2,000 sensor nodes which claim to have a 99% uptime.
The startup will be utilising the fresh capital to expand its operations across the global south, especially South Asia, Africa and Latin America. It will also strengthen its Brazilian subsidiary, which it claims has a presence in over 100 cities in the country. Broadly, it is targeting a presence in 1,000 cities in the coming three years.
Besides, the startup will also scale its climate intelligence analytics platform, invest in product and hardware enhancements, and optimise manufacturing for large-scale sensor deployments.
Prior to this round, Aurassure had raised about $500K in its seed funding round led by Unicorn India Ventures in 2023. Since then, the startup claims that its revenues have grown 150% YoY.
The fresh funding round comes at a time when debates over climate change and global warming are intensifying, bringing to the fore a growing need for accurate, hyperlocal, and real-time environmental monitoring
In this, the global south has seen increased climate volatility in the past few decades, and monitoring of environmental data is still in its nascent stages. India ranks seventh globally for climate vulnerability, and the government in recent years has made policy decisions that has allowed numerous climate-focussed startups to crop up.
Although, climate monitoring is not as hot as other companies operating in the sector, which are instead focussing on electric mobility, decarbonising, sustainable materials and green energy. Overall, at least 63 Indian startups were operating in the space by the end of December last year. It was the fifth most funded sector in 2024, raising $829 Mn across 75 deals.
Zerodha-backed ‘impact’ focussed-Rainmatter has been making multiple bets in this space. It has provided early stage funding to 40 climate startups operating in India.
