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As sustainability becomes increasingly important due to climate change, hydroponic farming offers a practical solution. It uses less water, grows more food in less space through vertical stacking, and helps plants grow faster with direct nutrient access. The controlled environment needs fewer pesticides and allows year-round farming, even in areas with bad soil or extreme weather. This concept fascinated Subhajit Sinha, a postgraduate from IIITDM Kancheepuram. He discovered hydroponic farming at an IIT Madras exhibition and was fascinated that plants could grow without soil. This curiosity became his master's thesis on intelligent IoT solutions for commercial farming. His market research revealed a critical gap: Indian farmers had to choose between expensive Israeli or European systems or unreliable local "Jugaad" solutions. He found that Asia's growing commercial farms needed affordable, reliable precision farming technology. How it works To solve this gap, Sinha founded 4Climate as the CEO in 2023 with Vasu Faldu as the CTO, in Vadodara, Gujarat. The solution provides automated systems that control climate, nutrients, and irrigation for greenhouses and vertical farms. Faldu, a B. Tech in Electronics graduate from Gujarat University, brought technical expertise to support Subhajit’s vision. With incubation support from iCreate, Gujarat Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence and government grants under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Sinha spent two years developing and validating the product for commercial greenhouses and vertical farming. 4Climate’s IoT and AI-driven system automates climate control, irrigation, and nutrient delivery, reducing manual work. “Farms can run in almost full autopilot mode,” Sinha says. The engineering The hardware includes a touchscreen panel that controls pumps, fans, heaters, and valves, with sensors tracking temperature, humidity, and soil moisture in real time. The system works offline via the panel and remotely through WiFi, sending data to the cloud. Its software suite features a cloud-based mobile app on Android and iOS, syncing with AWS servers for real-time monitoring and control. Clients can access data, manage operations remotely, and adjust all parameters digitally. A key capability is handling multiple crops at once using shared infrastructure. For example, a farmer can grow tomatoes and capsicums with different cycles and nutrient needs using a single tank. The system can irrigate tomatoes at 9:00 AM and capsicums at 9:30 AM with crop-specific nutrients, eliminating separate motors and tanks. “The system makes intelligent decisions, for instance, skipping irrigation when soil moisture is sufficient. Farmers set their requirements once, and the system optimises everything, with full traceability,” Sinha says. The data analytics layer generates customised reports on costs, returns, and performance, while 4Climate’s team offers ongoing support with regular insights to help farmers optimise and scale their operations. Pricing and Market Position 4Climate offers automation systems ranging from Rs 2 lakh for small indoor farms (1,000 sq ft) to Rs 6–8 lakh for fully automated 2–3 acre greenhouses, depending on scale and automation degree. Its core customers are medium and large commercial farms, sustainable urban farming initiatives, and premium buyers such as hotels and airlines looking to control fresh-produce supply chains. Key clients include Qatar-based Flow Farms and ITC Hotel Bhopal. It has also been selected for the Sunbulah Agri-Food Cohort by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Environment, Water & Agriculture, and IIMA Ventures’ Kotak Biz Labs program. 4Climate competes with global players such as Priva, Netafim, and BlueLab, setting itself apart with an intuitive, modular system designed to adapt to diverse farming environments. Roadmap ahead With over 75 installations completed, 4Climate has raised Rs 1.6 crore in seed funding from investors, including Indigram Labs and TIH IIT Bombay. 4Climate is tapping rising food-security demand across the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. From 2026, it plans to expand into the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, while deepening its India footprint through collaborations with more greenhouse contractors. 4Climate is building a smart farm-management system that lets growers test different conditions virtually before applying them in real life. It also plans to add AI tools to help detect crop issues early and improve farm decisions. “Our goal is to make protected cultivation truly profitable, cultivating tomorrow, today,” Sinha says. 4Climate is part of YourStory’s Tech30 cohort—a selection of India’s most promising startups of 2025—unveiled at TechSparks Bengaluru. (Edited by Affirunisa Kankudti)
