Kazam Bags $3.6 Mn Funding For Its EV Charging Station Management System

Device agnostic electric mobility software startup Kazam has raised  $3.6 Mn in a round led by Avaana Climate Fund, with participation from Third Derivative and the startup’s existing investors Inflection Point Ventures and We Founder Circle.

Kazam stated that the funds will be used to extend offerings to its existing customers through tech innovation and strengthening product teams.

“The funds will also allow us to maintain our market leadership position in the e-mobility software segment,” said Kazam’s cofounder and CEO Akshay Shekhar.

Kazam’s agnostic software platform enables users to access total analytics of energy consumption and capacity of an EV battery pack, with a battery management system. 

The startup aims to build a one-stop e-mobility software platform for digitising and managing the entire value chain from managing grid energy to fuelling an EV to managing a fleet.

Founded in 2020 by Akshay Shekhar and Vaibhav Tyagi, the Bengaluru-based startup claims to be managing 150,000 kWh of electricity in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific. 

The startup manages more than 7000 charging points and plans to integrate 60,000 charging and swapping stations with its operating system in the next 14-15 months. In India, Kazam is connected with 60+ charging point operators. 

Yet, Kazam plans to penetrate deeper into the US market where it is partnered with two charging point operators, managing 3000+ vehicles. 

Prior to this, Kazam raised $1M in funding over three rounds from Dell Technologies and Inflection Point Ventures. 

According to Kazam, the global EV charging infrastructure market is only expected to grow exponentially from $7.7 Bn in 2020 to $27.7 Bn by 2025, at a CAGR of 29.4%. The startup is looking forward to tech innovation and partnering with government and private charging stations to gain a strategic position in the Indian market. 

The Indian EV market has recently been very active with government participation that has set a target of having 30% electric private cars, 70% electric commercial vehicles, and 80% electric two- and three-wheelers by 2030. The government has a strong focus on 9 cities that include Surat, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai. 

In March, Minister of State (MoS) for Heavy Industries Krishan Pal Gurjar informed the Parliament that India is home to 21.7 Lakh registered EVs.

However, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) rebuked the government for failing to achieve the targets under the FAME-II subsidies scheme and claimed that only around 5 Lakh EVs have been funded under the scheme which counts for about 50% of the target. 

In India, Revamp Moto, Ather Energy, BluSmart, Ola Electric, are a few names operating in the emobility space.