EV battery swapping network Battery Smart has recently announced that it has raised USD 7 million (around Rs 52 crore) in a pre-Series A round led by Blume Ventures and Orios Ventures. The fresh capital will be deployed for strengthening the startup’s battery assignment technology, scale its operations to service 10,000 electric vehicles daily, and expand to three new states by this fiscal, reported Business Standard.
The other investors who participated in the round include Green Frontier Capital, Baring Private Equity India, and angel investors such as Srinivas Anumolu (Founder – Elance, TutorVista, Bigbasket, Bluestone), K Ganesh (Serial Entrepreneur & Partner – GrowthStory.in), Niraj Singh, (Founder and CEO – Spinny), and Amit Bhasin (Co-Founder – GoMechanic), a release said.
Besides, alternative debt platform TradeCred, India’s leading alternative debt also participated as a debt partner with Rs 24 crore investment, the startup said in a release.
Founded in 2019 by Pulkit Khurana and Siddharth Sikka, Battery Smart provides battery-as-a-service to customers, allowing them to swap out electric vehicle batteries at the startup’s ‘Swap Stations’. The startup primarily services e-rickshaws currently. There are more than 15 lakh e-rickshaws plying the roads of our country currently. It has over 100 swap stations operational in the Delhi-NCR region.
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The Delhi based company uses IoT enabled batteries and data driven methodology for effective network planning and provides users with two-minute swaps within 1 km radius and zero wait time. Currently, it claims to have 1200 active vehicles on its platform and completes 5000 swaps daily. The company provides owners of two and three-wheelers the ability to swap out their drained battery for a fully charged one in just two minutes. This helps increase their up-time and earnings too.
Battery swapping addresses major deterrents to EV adoption like range anxiety, high up-front costs, and long downtimes. The funds raised will help us expand our presence pan-India, strengthen our technology, and make key hires, said Khurana.
After the COVID second wave, Battery Smart has grown more than 10x and continues to grow at a very rapid pace to currently service more than 1000 electric two and three-wheelers daily, said Arpit Agarwal, Director, Blume Ventures.
With over 2-lakh EVs in just the NCR region, there is no better time to invest in India’s electric mobility revolution. We are impressed by Battery Smart’s ability to grow 100 per cent every month, and we are keen to be a part of its fast-moving journey, said Hardik Shah, Founder and CEO, TradeCred.
The platform is targeting a USD 17-billion swapping market by 2025 by aiming to have a swapping station at every one square km area, according to the release.
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