ArcelorMittal looks to rope in Indian climate tech start-ups to go green

Launches first country-specific accelerator programme to achieve decarbonisation goal

Global steel major ArcelorMittal is trying to reel in climate technology start-ups from India to come up with ideas for its and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India’s (AM/NS India’s) decarbonisation journey.

The world’s second-largest steelmaker has a global innovation fund, called XCarb, to help navigate its climate journey. And now it has launched its first country-specific accelerator programme directed at India.

“It’s related to our growth plans and strategic view of the country,” says Irina Gorbounova, head, XCarb Innovation Fund.

Steel has a significant carbon footprint and ArcelorMittal has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 25 per cent per tonne of steel by the end of the decade at an estimated cost of $10 billion. This does not include joint ventures (JVs).

The XCarb Innovation Fund was launched in February 2021 with the idea of investing in companies developing breakthrough technologies for decarbonisation.

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So far, the fund has invested $189 million in seven companies and committed another $100 million in the Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Catalyst programme. Catalyst funds large demonstration projects and also invests in first-of-a-kind projects that use key emerging climate technologies. 

“Several companies approached us,” Gorbounova says. “Last year, we brainstormed with our technology teams and decided on the technology domains of interest for the group.”

The accelerator was launched specifying those domains, and start-ups were invited to apply. Early July, CHAR Technologies was selected as the winner, securing a $5 million investment through XCarb. ArcelorMittal Dofasco has also signed a memorandum of understanding with CHAR to buy biocarbon from its Ontario facility for large-scale trials in the coming years.

The steel giant has also established strategic partnerships with the joint runners-up of the accelerator – Carbon Upcycling and D-CARBN – with the option of investing in them in the future.

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Now, ArcelorMittal is looking to pull in decarbonisation-related ideas and technologies from India.

“India is a core market for us,” Gorbounova explains. “Considering our footprint and growth plans, it made sense to launch an accelerator specifically for India to tap into the country’s innovative ecosystem and see if we could identify some interesting technologies that can support us in our operations here.”

ArcelorMittal has a 60 per cent equity interest in the JV with Nippon Steel in India (AM/NS) and has major growth plans in the pipeline. The plant at Hazira, Gujarat, is on course to increase its capacity from 9 to 15 million tonnes (mt) by 2026. There are also brownfield options at Hazira and greenfield ones in Odisha, which will take AM/NS India’s capacity to 40 mt by 2035.

This is in line with the huge capex plans announced by major steel companies, which would help take India’s capacity to 300 mt by 2030-31.

For the India accelerator programme, ArcelorMittal will collaborate with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

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“There are a lot of technologies at a nascent stage that help towards decarbonisation. So, we are really casting our net across India and seeking to target not just start-ups but also getting into the labs of institutions,” says Raghuttama Rao, CEO, Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GDC) – IIT Madras.

Start-ups and early-stage companies can apply. “We are trying to see how we can get them together, curate them through a boot camp and accelerate a programme where we have personal discussion and extend technological, entrepreneurial and other mentorship support to them,” Rao adds. “Then we can identify which ones of these are ripe enough for involvement or partnership with the ArcelorMittal group.”

The GDC has worked with about 350 start-ups in the last five years, 25-30 per cent of which are in the clean technology space – from energy efficiency to energy storage, clean power, circularity and carbon extraction. The number of start-ups in the space is only expected to increase.

Steel’s green goals 

ArcelorMittal launches accelerator programme for climate tech start-ups in India, its first such country-specific initiative

The accelerator could help in ArcelorMittal and AM/NS India’s decarbonisation journey

The amount and form of funding is flexible

The steel major is collaborating with IIT Madras for the India accelerator