Fifteen Kenyan founders building solutions to some of the country’s most urgent climate and sustainability challenges have been selected for the 2026 Kenya ClimateLaunchpad cohort.
The local edition of the world’s largest green business ideas competition is powered by Climate KIC, Europe’s leading climate innovation agency and delivered in Kenya by GrowthAfrica, with financial backing from Bank of America and Irish Aid.
The cohort, spanning clean energy, sustainable agriculture, circular economy manufacturing, eco-packaging, climate-smart mobility and inclusive technology, represents the sharp end of a programme that has supported nearly 5,000 climate-related ideas across 97 countries since its founding in 2014 and whose global alumni network has raised more than €500 million in investment.
“These entrepreneurs are tackling some of Africa’s most urgent environmental and social challenges through innovation,” GrowthAfrica said in its announcement.
Since 2014, ClimateLaunchpad has operated across 97 countries as the world’s largest green business ideas competition. Through its year-round programme and global pitching events, over 5,000 teams have been helped to perfect their business models and sharpen their pitches, with 500 training bootcamps delivered and a global network of connections enabling Climate KIC alumni to raise more than €500 million in investment.
Over the next several months, the 15 founders will move through an intensive structured programme, an initial mini-course to sharpen their concepts, a multi-day expert-led boot camp, targeted coaching on value propositions and investor pitches, and eventual progression to national and regional finals, with the strongest performers advancing to the Global Grand Final.
Meet the 2026 Kenya Cohort
The 15 founders selected are:
Elijah Masibo, Founder of Cambier.
Gloriah Tirot, Founder of AgriWound.
Elizabeth Mwashuma, Founder of AgriScanAI.
Emmanuel Marindi, Founder of Torchbearer Institute of Technologies.
Ian Kemboi, Founder of Sound Safari Audio.
Kelvin Solo, Founder of Solazisha Energy Ltd.
Kevin Mwangi, Founder of Healthy Pets.
Kevin Mwangi, Founder of Studio Gwaka.
Maria Aloo, Founder of Rallum Eco Diapers.
Robinson Olaka, Founder of GridFlow Solar.
Tom Ondieki, Founder of MbuShild.
Eutychus Tepkenysiroroi, Founder of Subdue Earth.
Teddy Gichuhi Mbugua, Founder of Hyacinth EcoPack.
Mark Murangiri, Founder of MAS (Multifunctional Assistive System).
Stephen Kombo, Founder of GridStreak.
Their ventures span clean energy access, agritech, circular economy manufacturing, sustainable packaging, climate-smart agriculture and inclusive mobility, a portfolio that maps directly onto Kenya’s most critical environmental and economic pressure points.
Why Kenya. Why Now.
The urgency behind this cohort is not ceremonial. Kenya is simultaneously one of Africa’s most climate-vulnerable countries and one of its most entrepreneurially fertile.
The country loses an estimated 3 percent of GDP annually to climate-related impacts including droughts, floods and land degradation. More than 75 percent of Kenyans depend on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods, a dependence that becomes more precarious with every year of rainfall unpredictability.
Kenya generates an estimated 2,400 tonnes of solid waste per day, of which less than 10 percent is formally recycled. And approximately 24 percent of Kenyans still lack access to electricity, despite the country being a continental leader in renewable energy capacity.
GrowthAfrica, the programme’s Kenyan delivery partner, was founded in 2002 and is based in Nairobi. It has supported over 400 ventures, created more than 40,000 jobs and built a strong presence across Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia.
Its work is rooted in a commitment to driving Africa’s social and economic progress through business innovation. As Kenya’s ClimateLaunchpad delivery partner, GrowthAfrica brings that entrepreneurial infrastructure to bear on climate, specifically recognising that the entrepreneurs closest to climate problems are often best positioned to solve them.
Support from Bank of America strengthens the ecosystem from the earliest stages, giving visibility to solutions that can deliver real-world impact and reshape the economy. Meanwhile, Irish Aid empowers entrepreneurs in emerging markets, ensuring those on the front lines of climate change have the tools to build their own local solutions.
Irish Aid’s Climate Director Sinead Walsh has articulated the philosophy behind this kind of early-stage climate investment plainly: public organisations can take bigger risks in investing in early-stage ideas and creating new programmes and ClimateLaunchpad is precisely that kind of programme, providing knowledge, skills and global connections to entrepreneurs who would otherwise lack access to all three simultaneously.
A Global Platform With African Stakes
The global context gives the Kenyan cohort its full weight. In the 2025 edition of ClimateLaunchpad, the programme received more than 2,700 applications from participants across 40 countries, highlighting the growing global interest in climate entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation.
Kenya’s 15 selected founders are not competing in a local talent show. They are entering a global system in which the strongest will ultimately stand on the same stage as climate innovators from across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Africa receives approximately 3 percent of global climate finance despite bearing a disproportionate share of climate impacts, a structural injustice that programmes like ClimateLaunchpad Kenya are designed, in part, to redress by building the pipeline of investable African climate businesses that institutional capital can follow.
The continent needs approximately $213 billion per year in climate finance, according to the African Development Bank. It currently receives a fraction of that. The businesses being built by these 15 Kenyan founders are the infrastructure of the answer.
GrowthAfrica’s message to the 2026 cohort captured the institutional conviction behind the selection:
“To the 2026 cohort: congratulations on earning your place in this journey. Your ideas, solutions, and the future you’re building matter.”
In a country where climate and commerce are increasingly inseparable, that future is already under construction.
