One of the latest climate finance initiatives in India comes from Merak Ventures, a venture capital firm, and Huddle, an accelerator-led fund that have teamed up to launch ClimAct – a Climate Tech accelerator programme for startups in India. The programme will back startups in India in agriculture wastage and supply chain efficiency, mobility and transport, climate finance, carbon accounting and sequestration, and digital solutions. And Indian SaaS icon Zoho announces expansion plans, crossing $1 billion in annual revenue. Notes: Snap, maker of photo and video sharing app Snapchat, yesterday announced the India launch of the Snapchat Sounds Creator Fund - a grant program designed to recognize emerging, independent artists in India. Starting mid-November, Snap has partnered DistroKid to facilitate and distribute $50,000 divided into payments of $2,500 to up to 20 artists per month. Amazon yesterday got the go-ahead from a South African court to build its planned offices in Cape Town, on a plot that is considered a heritage site, in a setback for the indigenous people attempting to stop the development, Bloomberg reports. As world leaders meet in Egypt for the COP 27 annual summit on climate change, John Kerry, the US climate envoy and Democratic Party stalwart, said a Republican win in today’s midterm election in America would cut the flow of climate finance to poorer countries, Bloomberg reports. Speaking at a panel discussion on climate adaptation, Kerry delivered a stark warning about the potential for the US to deliver billions in its share of international climate finance. “If what I think will happen in today’s elections happens and the House is gone, you’re not going to see that money,” he said, according to the report. Merak Ventures, a sector-agnostic, early-stage venture capital firm, and Huddle, an accelerator-led fund for India's early-stage ventures, yesterday announced the launch of ClimAct – a Climate Tech accelerator program for startups in India. The program aims to accelerate and fund early-stage Climate Tech start-ups in India working in areas such as agriculture-wastage and supply chain efficiency, mobility and transport, climate finance, carbon accounting and sequestration, and digital solutions. ClimAct is open for applications, and the first cohort will kick off in February 2023, Merak and Huddle said in a press release. The program will run for four months through June 2023. The selected companies will gain access to an upfront Pre-Seed capital of $200,000 per startup, with the potential for follow-on investment of up to $1.5 million post the 4-month program. Zoho, India’s best-known and biggest software company, has hit $1 billion in annual revenue, seeing more uptake for its unified approach to business software with products such as Zoho One. “Fundamentals matter now more than ever, and our industry has to learn to lower the friction of technology so that technology becomes far more affordable,” Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of the Chennai company said in a press release. “We have also crossed an important milestone of $1 billion in annual revenue. While growth has slowed down quite a bit in 2022 over 2021, our diversified product portfolio and the fact that we save money for customers has helped us so far.” Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds