You're here for the story. Here it goes-

I was born and brought up in a small city in India where I first hand witnessed disparity between different classes of society. 

In the first few years of my professional career, I tried to bridge those disparities by using the power of finance in catalyzing urban reform. I worked with Governments and Multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to set up financial institutions committed to developing smart infrastructure in Africa and Southeast Asia.

A firm believer in capital for social good and equitable education for every child, I later helped raise funds from individuals, corporations, and foundations for a global nonprofit. My passion for creating social change drove me towards setting up two non-profit organizations that work towards empowering the underprivileged community. 

In 2019, I was selected as a part of the LGT fellowship cohort- a group of ten changemakers working around the globe to help create social change. In late 2020, I got sold on the promise of decentralization and permissionless systems spent the next year or so building multiple onchain products and communities. The products I've built have won grants from foundations of all major blockchains.

My vision for the next decade is to build at the frontier of technology and create protocols and structures to bring India and the world onchain.

When I am not talking about bringing the world onchain or sustainable social impact, I am talking about football, rock music, or my cross-country travels. 

Interested in knowing more, ping me on twitter @saxenasaheb and we’ll set up some time to chat.

Saumya Saxena

I am excited to announce that I am starting a new position as EMEA and India Lead, Base at Coinbase!

It has been a remarkable year building Base in India:

- From starting a small telegram group to becoming the largest onchain builder collective
- Our initiatives have directly impacted over 4000 developers
- We've allocated over half a million to builders building at the forefront of onchain technology
- 95% of Indian projects on Base are either utilizing Base or adding Base support.
- We've seen an Indian founder go from a hackathon project to being a multimillion dollar project that's listed on Coinbase in just 100 days
- The team has grown significantly across different verticals of academy, media, community, and capital
- An increasing number of young Indian builders are experimenting with Internet capital markets
- We've led a whole wave of creators through our programs that are now helping builders find distribution and users for their projects

Now, I'm excited to broaden scope to supporting founders, builders, creators, and capital allocators across these regions to come participate in this new onchain economy we're building.

If you're a founder, builder, or capital allocator looking to get involved. 
Let's talk!

Most companies know renewable energy makes sense. Very few find the process easy enough to actually act on it.

Hi, I’m Nimish.

I co-founded Opten Power after spending a few years watching large companies struggle with decisions that should have been straightforward. While working in management consulting on cost optimization for private-equity-backed businesses, one pattern kept repeating.

High-stakes decisions slowed down because of:
📍Too many spreadsheets
📍Too many stakeholders
📍Too little clarity, too late

Energy was the clearest example, not because savings didn’t exist, but because the path to getting there was unnecessarily complicated. That’s why Opten Power exists.

We help commercial and industrial companies move forward on open-access solar, wind, and hybrid power without months of back-and-forth.

What changes in practice:
⚡Project discovery in days, not months
⚡ROI visibility before capital is committed
⚡Decision cycles that move in weeks, not quarters

My way of thinking comes from a mix of:
📌 Economics, where incentives matter more than intent
📌 Procurement work, where structure decides outcomes
📌 Time spent inside complex systems, where clarity beats persuasion

I care about decisions that make sense today and continue to make sense 10 or 20 years from now.

Outside work, I follow AI and climate tech closely, read philosophy when I want better questions, and stay curious.

If you’re responsible for energy costs or long-term power decisions and want a clearer way to think about renewables, I’m always open to a conversation.
DMs are open. Coffee’s on me if you’re in Gurgaon.

Nimish Patel

I was in my mid-twenties, pitching to a room full of people who had more experience than I and my co-founder. One of them smiled and said, "Beta, this isn't a young person's industry." 

We were discussing electricity costs.

Energy moves slowly. It runs on long relationships, shared history, and decisions that last 20–25 years. So when someone my age starts talking about large, long-term power costs, hesitation is natural.

What surprised me wasn’t the reaction. It was the pattern underneath.

Many companies were choosing power partners based on familiar names, polished presentations, and recommendations. Very few decisions were built on a simple question.  What will this actually cost us over time?

That’s how it had always been done. So we chose a different approach.
Instead of pitching, we put the numbers on the table.

→ What would electricity really cost over the full contract
→ What the fine print meant in real, everyday situations
→ What changes over 10 or 20 years, not just year one

When something didn’t make sense, we said so. Even if it meant walking away.
That’s when conversations shifted.

Experience was never the issue. We’re still young. Still learning. Still occasionally walking into rooms where we're the youngest by two decades.

The difference now? It’s usually followed by, “Let’s move ahead.”

Have you walked into a room where nobody expected you to deliver? What changed the conversation for you?

Building Opten Power | Helping Corporations Switch to Renewable Energy | Open Access Solar & Wind

The first time I explained group captive solar, a promoter laughed and asked if I was running a scam.

I didn’t push back. His reaction made sense. When you hear this for the first time, it sounds unreal. You invest a relatively small amount once.  

Your electricity bill drops by 30–40%, and that investment comes back quickly. You make back your capital in less than 9-10 months, and the savings continue for 20-25 years.  

So here’s the simple version, without energy jargon.

Indian law allows companies to be treated as captive consumers if they own a small part of the power plant that supplies them with electricity.

When that happens, some of the surcharges that inflate industrial electricity bills don’t apply, and removing those charges makes power much cheaper. That’s the first unlock.

Now for the part most people don’t realize: solar plants aren’t built with one company’s money. They’re funded using loans and equity.

In a group captive setup:

→ Multiple companies jointly own small stakes in one solar project
→ Each company only needs a small equity share to qualify
→ The developer builds, runs, and maintains the plant

Typically, that equity works out to roughly 8% of the project cost. So on a ₹10 crore project:

📍You invest about ₹80 lakh
📍Lower power bills recover over time
📍The savings continue year after year
📍The payback for the invested amount is often between 8 and 12 months

This structure has existed since 2005. It isn’t new. It’s just rarely explained well.

The promoter who laughed? His company now saves over a crore every year on electricity. Sometimes ideas sound risky, not because they are, but because we haven’t seen them before.

If your company spends over ₹1 Cr annually on electricity and hasn't explored group captive, you may be overpaying. We help businesses navigate this - DM me to understand your options

#energyconversations

Everyone's talking about tax cuts in Budget 2026. Almost nobody is talking about the energy shift that will change how Indian factories buy power.

The government just increased BESS VGF from ₹100 crore to ₹1,000 crore.

That's not a small bump. That's a signal.

A new Infrastructure Risk Guarantee Fund will make it easier for lenders to back large storage projects. MNRE allocation went up 30% to ₹32,914 crore. PM Surya Ghar got ₹22,000 crore. Solar sector allocation crossed ₹30,000 crore.

The supply chain push is equally telling.

→ Rare Earth Corridors coming up in Odisha, Kerala, AP, Tamil Nadu 

→ Duty exemption on sodium antimonate for solar glass (7.5% down to 0%) 

→ 35 capital goods for EV battery manufacturing now duty-free 

→ Lithium-ion cell duty exemption extended to BESS through March 2028

With ALMM kicking in, India has no choice. Either build local supply chains or pay more for imports.

One open question worth watching - the proposed restructuring of PFC and REC. If done right, it could unlock better financing for renewable projects across the board.

For C&I businesses, the message is clear.

Storage-backed renewable contracts will soon be the norm. If you're still buying power at ₹8-10 per unit from discoms, this budget just made the switch more attractive.

taplio

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The Battle

Saumya Saxena

Nimish Patel

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Saumya Saxena's LinkedIn Performance

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