CDR Investment Landscape and Investor Priorities

cCarbon also shared its perspective on how the market is moving from early market creation toward a more disciplined phase, where repeatable execution, cash flow visibility, and infrastructure-style investment logic are becoming increasingly central to scaling the CDR sector.

Panellists:

Ramprashanth Mohanasundaram

Vice President at WestBridge Capital

Ram is driven by a passion for creating meaningful change. A Summa Cum Laude graduate of Harvard Business School, with a focus on investment management and private equity, he also holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from IIT Madras. At IITM, he led the tech ecosystem, building racecars and establishing innovation and entrepreneurship cells.

Ram began his career at McKinsey, working on large-scale transformations across logistics and manufacturing sectors. Since joining WestBridge in 2019, he has played a pivotal role in consumer and financial services investments. He works closely with entrepreneurs to build high-quality, long-term value-driven businesses. Ram also leads investments deep-tech sector focusing on climate, space, defense among others. Within climate-tech, Ram led WestBridge’s $45M Series B investment in Varaha, global leading carbon credit project developer.

Philip Moss

Founder & Executive Chairman at Blended Finance Group

Philip Moss is a leading authority on financial mechanisms and systemic approaches to support climate action and sustainable infrastructure. He currently serves multiple roles as the Founder of the Blended Finance Group, Senior Advisor to carbon removal asset manager ClimeFi; and Chair of the Global 1000 corporate competition with the XPRIZE to catalyze the carbon removal market amongst the world’s largest companies. He has been at the cutting edge of innovations around climate finance over the past 20 years, including through the establishment of NextGen CDR with Mitsubishi Corporation and South Pole, a corporate purchasing pool for carbon removals launched with founding buyers Boston Consulting Group, LGT Group, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Swiss Re and UBS where he built the largest diversified portfolio of carbon removals globally.

Prior to NextGen CDR, Philip pioneered the concept of “blended finance” whilst at the World Economic Forum, establishing a +$150 billion market and the Convergence platform, while leading the Sustainable Development Investment Alliance of 42 leading governments, financial institutions and investors to mobilize $100 billion for sustainable infrastructure in emerging markets. He has access to a broad network and deep experience across the carbon and cleantech markets, having served as Managing Partner for Mana Ventures, an Abu Dhabi-based cleantech investment advisory firm and as the Carbon Portfolio Manager for Masdar, where he managed the largest CER portfolio in the MENA region.

He has also held senior positions with 17 Asset Management, CantorCO2e, the UNEP Finance Initiative and HSBC. Philip frequently contributes to thought leadership on issues related to international policy to enable blended finance and carbon removal markets, having been actively engaged in various industry initiatives such as the Zayed Future Energy Prize and Oxford Offsetting Principles Practitioners Forum, while frequently lecturing at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Philip holds degrees in Economics and Statistics from NC State University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth