The cleantech startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia is rapidly evolving, driven by a growing awareness of environmental issues, supportive government policies, and increasing investment interest.
This region, characterised by its rich biodiversity and vulnerability to climate change, presents a fertile ground for innovation in clean technologies. Startups in this space focus on renewable energy, waste management, water conservation, and sustainable agriculture, among other areas.
The regional cleantech startup ecosystem also sees significant investment from VC investors and impact investors, who increasingly consider the space as viable investment opportunities driven by the global push towards sustainable development.
We have compiled below a list of 30 fast-growing cleantech startups from across Southeast Asia:
Umitron 
It has developed AI and IoT-based aquaculture solutions for farms to optimise their feeding practices, lowering their costs and preventing waste and environmental damage. Its technology stack includes solar-powered IoT devices deployed on aquaculture farms in the ocean to film fishes and measure patterns in their behaviour using computer vision.
Through machine learning algorithms, the solution can detect when fish are hungry and automatically release feed for them. It also leverages satellite imagery to augment these insights by providing information about the sea’s temperature.
| Founding year: | 2016 |
| Total funding raised: | US$0.4 million |
| Investors: | ENEOS Group, QB Capital, Toyo Seikan Kaisha, Shoko Chukin Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Mirai Creation Fund, INCJ, D4V, IDEO, SMBC Trust Bank, NCB Venture Capital |
VFlow Tech
VFlowTech is vanadium-based redox flow (VRF) battery company. It claims to have developed “the cheapest and most efficient modular VRF batteries”, which deliver long-lasting, reliable energy storage solutions for renewable integration at an affordable price. VRF battery works through the continuous reduction and oxidation reaction between the vanadium redox couples with no detrimental issues and with the cross-mixing of the redox couples. VFlowTech’s storage solution has an expected life span of 25 years and is safe and environmentally friendly battery technology.
Also Read: Global port operator PSA joins VFlowTech’s Series A extension round
| Founding year: | 2018 |
| Total funding raised: | US$13 million |
| Investors: | PSA International, Real Tech Holdings, Sing Fuels, Pappas Capital, Carbon Zero Capital, İnci Holding, Wavemaker Impact, SEEDS Capital, Entrepreneur First, TK & Partners, STI |
SensorFlow
SensorFlow develops room automation and energy management systems focussed on the hospitality sector. It provides its solution on a subscription-based model. The product is built on top of a proprietary network stack which helps automate a building using a single gateway resulting in complex installations readily optimizing energy consumption. Its product line includes occupancy sensors, smart thermostats, door sensors, and split unit thermostats.
| Founding year: | 2016 |
| Total funding: | US$11.6 million |
| Investors: | Openspace Ventures, GAW Capital Partners, Aurum Land, Cocoon Capital, 2be.lu, InSitu, Entrepreneur First, Playfair Capital, SGInnovate, SparkLabs Global Ventures, Tigris Capital, Cub Capital, Xpanasia, Plug and Play APAC |
Barramundi
It is a producer of fish using sustainable aquaculture farming solutions. The company uses a Biofloc farming solution and offers different fish along with by-products, such as the swim bladder, head, bone, and scale.
| Founding year: | 2008 |
| Total funding: | US$11.2 million |
| Investors: | UOB, Oceanus, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, CRISTA Ministries, Louis Dreyfus Company, Far East Ventures, Southern Capital, WarifTech, AMBRA Solutions, Hammarviken Business Development, RCL Partners, Temasek Life Sciences Accelerator |
Unravel Carbon
Unravel Carbon helps companies track and reduce their carbon emissions. An AI-powered decarbonisation platform, Unravel Carbon converts any company’s accounting data into full supply chain carbon data in seconds, provides detailed emissions analytics, generates climate solutions, and auto-populates regulatory disclosure reports.
| Founding year: | 2021 |
| Total funding raised: | US$8.8 million |
| Investors: | Surge, Alpha JWC Ventures, XA Network, Rebel Fund, Global Founders Capital, Amasia, Y Combinator |
AirCarbon
It provides a blockchain-based carbon credits trading exchange. The trading platform is easy to use, frictionless, and charges a low commission fee.
| Founding year: | 2019 |
| Total funding raised: | US$70 million |
| Investors: | Trirec, Mubadala, Banpu, PJSC, Deutsche Borse Group, Hub71 |
Green Li-ion
It provides a battery recycling service. Its modular hardware solutions convert spent batteries into cathode and anode materials, creating a circular economy for lithium-ion batteries.
Also Read: Battery recycling startup Green Li-ion secures US$20.5M pre-Series B funding
| Founding year: | 2020 |
| Total funding raised: | US$41 million |
| Investors: | Twin Towers Ventures, Banpu NEXT, Trirec, Equinor, EDP, Envisioning Partners, SOSV, ERV, Entrepreneur First, LINICO Corp, DPI Energy Ventures, MB Energy Partners, EDP Ventures, Ilshin, GS Holdings, Ilshin Holdings, LINICO, HAX, TES-AMM |
Apeiron Bioenergy
Apeiron Bioenergy collects and processes a range of renewable feedstocks, including used cooking oil (UCO) and palm oil mill effluent (POME), and acts as a critical exporter across the Asian market.
Over the past 15 years, Apeiron has built its presence in over ten countries and collected more than 500 million litres of UCO between 2017 and 2021, offsetting an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
| Founding year: | 2007 |
| Total funding raised: | US$37 million |
| Investors: | CGIF, ASEAN, Proterra Investment Partners, Mitsui Chemicals |
Nutrition Technologies 
The startup provides insect-based products for agriculture and livestock. It develops its product using black soldier fly larvae and recycles nutrients from agricultural and food processing by-products. Nutrition’s product offerings include insect-based organic fertilisers for agriculture, protein feed for livestock, and also oil.
| Founding year: | 2016 |
| Total funding raised: | US$34 million |
| Investors: | Bunge, PTT, Openspace Ventures, Hera Capital, Sumitomo, ING Bank, Mandala Capital, SEEDS Capital, Enterprise Singapore, Nullabor, Neptune, Alpha Founders Capital, Primex Capital |
bbp
bbp is an energy efficiency company that enables businesses to achieve their carbon neutrality and sustainability goals. It claims to enable companies to achieve up to 40 per cent of energy and cost savings using patented HVAC optimisation technologies, IoT, proprietary software algorithms, and machine learning.
At present, bbp serves customers across Southeast Asia, China, India and Taiwan. Its customers include semiconductor manufacturers, Fortune 500 companies and real estate companies.
| Founding year: | 2012 |
| Total funding raised: | US$33 million |
| Investors: | KKR, Tembusu Partners, Boltzmann Consulting, K3 Ventures, Red Maple Leaf Biotechnology |
BoomGrow
Kuala Lumpur-headquartered BoomGrow is an indoor farming company operating in the vertical farming and precision farming space. It grows fresh, clean, hyperlocal produce such as butterhead, romaine, kale, Swiss chard, basil, and mint. These are otherwise imported from cold countries.
| Founding year: | 2015 |
| Total funding raised: | Undisclosed |
| Investors: | Gobi Partners’s Dana Impak Fund, Big Sky Capital, Arch Free Ventures |
Also Read: BoomGrow: Transforming Malaysia’s food landscape with hyperlocal indoor farming
NLYTech Biotech
NLYTech Biotech is a biotechnology manufacturer that focuses on the development of the environmentally friendly solution in replacing single-use plastic products.
It focuses on the research and development of biodegradable products made with 100 per cent natural ingredients (without polymer content) to replace fossil-based single-use plastic and paper products.
| Founding year: | 2018 |
| Total funding raised: | US$2.5 million |
| Investors: | Undisclosed |
EcoWorth Tech
The company turns cellulosic waste biomass into carbon fibre aerogel (CFA), a patented advanced material mainly used on transforming wastewater streams into waste-to-worth opportunities. Made from natural and sustainable material, CFA has a competitive advantage in being low-cost and non-toxic, with an extremely high absorbency and affinity for liquid organics, and actively repels water.
| Founding year: | 2016 |
| Total funding raised: | US$700K |
| Investors: | Undisclosed angels |
TrinityEco
Started by three partners, TrinityEco is focused on helping SMEs and investors meet increasing ESG demands through fintech and regtech, which enhances companies’ profiles and processes.
| Founding year: | 2019 |
| Total funding raised: | Undisclosed |
| Investors: | Undisclosed |
Cosmos Innovation
Cosmos Innovation is an AI-first company building next-generation perovskite silicon tandem solar cell technology. It AI platform — Mobius — can discovering the combination of materials, processes, and architectures that yields the most efficient solar cells.
| Founding year: | 2019 |
| Total funding raised: | Undisclosed |
| Investors: | Innovation Endeavors, Xora Innovation, Two Sigma Ventures, ENI Next, WTI, Shinrai Investments, Demis Hassabis, Tomaso Poggio, Richard Socher, Arun Varma Penmetsa |
Tigasfera
It has developed EcoSfera, a containerised, on-site waste conversion system to produce on-demand energy and valuable byproducts. It can turn organic and inorganic waste into combustible synthesis gas (syngas) to generate electricity and bio-carbon for agriculture and power plants. The system employs cutting-edge gasification and pyrolysis technology, cleaner than conventional incinerators and diesel generators.
Also Read: EcoSfera helps turn your household waste into energy in the comfort of your home
| Founding year: | 2014 |
| Total funding raised: | Undisclosed |
| Investors: | PETRONAS’s FutureTech 3.0 |
Solar AI
The startup seeks to make rooftop solar accessible and hassle-free for smaller, underserved property owners by providing them with zero upfront cost.
Its primary product is its RTO solar programme, which enables customers to own a solar panel system with zero upfront cost, paying a flat monthly fee for installation, maintenance, servicing, and energy generation guarantee.
Compared to the traditional solar offer that demands an upfront cost of US$15,000 to US$50,000, the startup’s RTO model helps de-risk solar as a renewable energy solution, particularly in Southeast Asia, with a penetration rate of less than 1 per cent.
| Founding year: | 2020 |
| Total funding raised: | US$1.5 million |
| Investors: | Earth Venture Capital, Undivided Ventures, Investible, David Pardo |
Trash Panda 
Trash Panda (Circula Recoon Systems) is a digitised waste recovery solution for communities, businesses, institutions, and industries. It collects a wider range of segregated recoverable waste and funnels cashback to customers and clients from waste buyers who recycle the collected waste into new consumer products.
| Founding year: | 2020 |
| Total funding raised: | Undisclosed |
| Investors: | Undisclosed |
Nibertex
Nibertex has developed 100 per cent PFAS-free, waterproof, breathable membranes. It utilises advanced polymer sciences to create films completely free from PFAS chemicals. These membranes eliminate the use of these harmful chemicals, significantly reducing environmental pollution and potential health hazards associated with traditional waterproof textiles. They can achieve “superior performance” using safer, compliant chemicals while offering enhanced breathability and durability.
| Founding year: | 2020 |
| Total funding raised: | Undisclosed |
| Investors: | Foxmont Capital Partners, a consortium of Southeast Asian families |
Carbon Balance
The startup leverages technology to achieve a balance between business growth and sustainability while promoting awareness of climate change. Its reporting and online tools are accessible for e-commerce businesses of all sizes. The solution is customisable for various e-commerce platforms, easy to implement, and visible throughout the entire online customer journey.
| Founding year: | 2023 |
| Total funding raised: | US$125,000 |
| Investors: | Antler |
Hydroleap
Hydroleap provides innovative, chemical-free, high-performance, and modularised electrochemical technologies to replace conventional chemical and energy-intensive processes.
Hydroleap’s two core electrochemical technologies are electrocoagulation (Hl-EC) and electrooxidation (HL-EO). These technologies effectively reduce up to 95 per cent of pollutants found in wastewater, thereby facilitating water upcycling across numerous industries.
| Founding year: | 2016 |
| Total funding raised: | US$4.4 million |
| Investors: | Real Tech Holdings, Mitsubishi Electric, Seeds Capital, Wavemaker Partners, New Keynes Investments, the State Government of Victoria |
Agros
The startup provides sustainable agriculture solutions for small and medium-sized horticulture farmers across Asia. The company is helping horticulture farmers to decarbonise, whilst doubling their profit through a full-stack solution.
Its first two products – Agrosolar and Agrosoil – are solving major agriculture problems like fuel dependency and soil degradation. After switching to Agros’ ecosystem, farmers can double their profits from reduced input costs, improved yields, and higher prices from better-quality crops.
| Founding year: | 2019 |
| Total funding raised: | US$2.83 million |
| Investors: | Gaia Impact Fund, Wavemaker Partners |
FlyORO
FlyORO is a provider of last-mile sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) blending technologies. Its modular, on-demand blending service of SAF and jet fuel enables aviation on its emissions reduction journey. It enables flyers the flexibility to align their ESG targets per flight. With a small form factor of 40ft, it is space-efficient and portable and can be installed anywhere at or off the airport base. This solution allows airport fuel operators to serve flyers more effectively with a simplified supply chain.
Also Read: FlyORO wants to decarbonise aviation with its last-mile sustainable fuel blending tech
| Founding year: | 2021 |
| Total funding raised: | US$1.6 million |
| Investors: | Audacy Ventures, Investible, unnamed private investors |
Protenga
Protenga has developed a next-generation Smart Insect Farm system. Harnessing the power of Black Soldier Flies with its production technology, Protenga produces sustainable and high-quality protein, oil and frass products for feed and fertiliser.
| Founding year: | 2018 |
| Total funding raised: | US$2 million |
| Investors: | SEEDS Capital |
Waste Labs
Waste Labs is an AI startup that enables recycling and circular supply chains by optimising waste collecting. The platform gives data-driven insights and prescriptive recommendations to waste managers, allowing them to create and operate efficient waste collection systems anywhere in the globe.
The platform combines waste-specific data and optimisation algorithms developed over more than a decade of research and development, and it may serve a variety of business and sustainability goals.
| Founding year: | 2020 |
| Total funding raised: | US$500,000 |
| Investors: | Entrepreneur First, Fund4SE, strategic angels |
Nanotronics
Nanotronics is a deeptech startup producing advanced and sustainable nanomaterials for various industrial applications enabling key industries to create innovative and breakthrough solutions.
| Founding year: | 2014 |
| Total funding raised: | US$280,000 |
| Investors: | Undisclosed |
Allium Bio
Allium Bio is combining the strengths of microalgae and mycelium in a novel co-culture fermentation method to create a new plant-based protein that grows faster, is significantly cheaper to harvest, and has unique functional properties (emulsification, binding, etc.). It has secured pilot projects with multiple plant-based meat customers across APAC, and partnerships with leading microalgae and mycelium research labs.
| Founding year: | 2022 |
| Total funding raised: | US$150,000 |
| Investors: | Better Bite Ventures |
Gree Energy 
Gree Energy makes biogas projects financially viable by unlocking the full potential of carbon crediting programmes, renewable energy and green finance. It creates scalable solutions by leveraging the power of the global sustainability economy to rethink how food industries treat their waste in emerging countries.
| Founding year: | 2013 |
| Total funding raised: | US$3.55 million |
| Investors: | Earthcare Group, Water Unite Impact |
WasteX
The startup provides an end-to-end solution to farms and agricultural producers, helping them utilise biomass waste by converting it into biochar and then applying it in their operations for operational, financial, and environmental benefits. Its mission extends beyond immediate benefits to farmers.
Also Read: WasteX nets funding to help farm producers convert biomass waste into biochar
At the centre of WasteX’s biochar technology is its proprietary small-scale and semi-automated carboniser equipped with a unique dual-action burner. WasteX utilises both biomass fuel and captured syngas produced during biomass pyrolysis, enhancing energy efficiency. Furthermore, by recapturing and reutilising syngas for heat generation used in biochar production, WasteX minimises the potential for methane.
| Founding year: | 2022 |
| Total funding raised: | US$450,000 |
| Investors: | P4G Partnerships |
Nika.eco
Nika.eco uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create advanced climate models for determining carbon credit issuance. It tracks forest carbon, conducts deep dives into geospatial data and analyses additionality, baseline, leakage and permanence data. Carbon project investors and developers can use this data to develop nature-based projects and reach their net zero goals.
| Founding year: | 2022 |
| Total funding raised: | Undisclosed |
| Investors: | Silverstrand Capital, Timbul Ventures, DMV Investments, Orvel Ventures, and Ascend Network |
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