“Chargeup, the company building Bharat’s largest battery-swapping network for electric two- and three-wheelers, has announced that it has raised USD 2.5 million in pre-Series-A round led by Capital A and Anicut Capital,” according to the statement released.
Other marquee investors who participated in the round include actors Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor, as well as Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta (founders of BoAt), with Grip invested as the leasing partner.
Founded by Varun Goenka and Ankur Madan, Chargeup offers battery as a Service (BaaS) with lightweight lithium batteries that can be swapped at multi swap points. It provides the service to a community of around 2.4 million e-rickshaws.
This enables unlimited swaps and helps the end-user convert 50 per cent of the vehicle cost from capex (capital expenditure) into opex (operating expenses), in the process facilitating faster adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), it said.
Also, Read This: Lords Automative Is Forming a Joint Venture With Kerala Automobiles Ltd To Make EVs In Kerala
Battery swapping also eliminates range anxiety and the need for buying or managing batteries as the service provider takes care of these needs.
Ankit Kedia, founder, Capital-A said, “Development of sustainable and technology-driven support for mobility services is the need of the hour. Through its network of battery swapping stations, Chargeup is rapidly building a favourable EV ecosystem for faster adoption of EVs by eliminating the range anxiety as well as the challenge of battery ownership costs. This is our first investment as a part of our recently launched exclusive $10 million (Rs 75 crore) cleantech fund ‘Evolve’.”
Ashvin Chadha, co-founder and managing partner, Anicut Angel Fund said, “Green mobility is the need of the hour. India is a massive country with humongous last-mile connectivity operations. With the emergence of electric mobility, there is also an equally growing need to build infrastructure that charges the EVs of tomorrow. Mass adoption of EVs will gain momentum only when the charging concerns are eliminated through solutions such as battery swapping.”
Also, Read This: Tata Motors Will Likely Invest Over USD 1 billion In Next 4-5 Years
 with lightweight lithium batteries that can be swapped at multi swap points.){kind=link}