EV Battery Swapping Startup Battery Smart Raises $7 Mn

Battery Smart Founders - Swapping Station

SUMMARY

The startup operates more than 100 battery swapping stations servicing more than 1200 active e-rickshaws

Battery-swapping technology enables electric vehicles (EV) to ‘refuel’ as fast as (or even faster than) internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles; in about 2 minutes

The global EV battery swapping market is projected to grow from $100.1 Mn in 2020 to $852.6 Mn by 2030, at a CAGR of 24.4%.

Battery-swapping network startup Battery Smart has raised $7 Mn in a Pre Series A round led by Blume Ventures and Orios Ventures.

Green Frontier Capital, TradeCred, Baring Private Equity India, and angels like Srinivas Anumolu (founder – Elance, TutorVista, Bigbasket & Bluestone), K Ganesh (serial entrepreneur & partner, GrowthStory.in), Niraj Singh, (founder & CEO, Spinny), and Amit Bhasin (cofounder, GoMechanic).

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.

According to the startup, it operates over 100 Swap Stations across the Delhi-NCR region and has completed over 3 lakh battery swaps, powering 10 Mn emission-free miles. It also claims that customers can swap out batteries in under two minutes.

The startup currently has 1,200 active vehicles on its platform and completes 5,000 swaps daily.

“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. We are excited to be a partner in the journey of Pulkit and Siddharth as they make adoption of electric mobility even more simple, economic, and accessible,” said Arpit Agarwal, Director, Blume Ventures.

Battery Smart will utilise the freshly raised funds towards scaling its operation to serve 10,000 electric vehicles daily, expanding to three new states by next year.

“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 Pulkit Khurana, cofounder, Battery Smart.

Battery-swapping technology presents a happy medium for applications in electric vehicles: customers can shift towards electric vehicles without having to wait extended periods of time to charge their vehicles. It would take about the same amount of time to ‘refuel’ a battery-swap capable vehicle as it would with an ICE vehicle.

But some critics assert that storing charging and maintaining battery swapping packs would be far more complex and costly than simply connecting EVs to the existing electricity grid — making it a resource and manpower-intensive project.

Another problem with battery swapping technologies is that electric vehicle OEMs have shown no interest in standardised battery packs in the past and that is unlikely to change unless they are provided incentives or a regulatory framework forces them to.

According to Allied Market Research, the global EV battery swapping market was valued at $100.1 Mn in 2020 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 24.4% to reach $852.6 Mn by 2030.

Earlier this year, EV battery manufacturing and recycling startup Lohum Cleantech had raised $7 Mn in a fresh round of funding led by Baring Private Equity Partners.

With the Indian government being particularly bullish about Electric Vehicle adoption in the country and the extension of the FAME-II subsidy scheme for electric vehicles, Indian EV and battery startups are rushing to build battery charging infrastructure in the country.