MILES Challenge

About MILES

The MILES Challenge — M+ Innovation Lab for Energy and Sustainability — is MEF's clean energy incubation and acceleration programme, co-launched with Amplus Solar, Asia's leading distributed energy company and a member of the PETRONAS Group. Delivered through the GoMassive Earth Network, MILES was purpose-built to locate early-stage startups with ready-to-deploy clean energy solutions in India and accelerate them into commercial viability — bridging the gap between proven technology and large-scale industrial deployment.

The programme targets innovation across four technical sectors: distributed solar (rooftop systems, off-grid architectures, localized generation), electric mobility (EV infrastructure, fleet management, and clean transit), battery storage (advanced BESS and energy management systems), and IoT applications in energy (smart grid management, AI energy analytics, and digital asset tracking). Selected startups retain 100% of their intellectual property while gaining access to paid pilot opportunities across Amplus Solar's large corporate client portfolio. The winner receives up to $100,000 in seed capital to scale commercial operations. Startups pitch to a jury drawn from the World Bank, UNEP, and IIM Ahmedabad.

Ernst & Young served as official process advisors — managing structural flow, framework vetting, and financial tracking — bringing institutional-grade governance to the programme. Within MEF's portfolio, MILES occupies a distinct position: while programmes like SAFFAL and AgroXlerate address gender-lens finance and agricultural climate resilience, MILES is strictly focused on building an industrial clean energy backbone — distributed generation, clean mobility, battery storage, and the digital infrastructure that ties them together.