Can Evera Fill The BluSmart Vacuum?

The BluSmart fiasco in 2025 opened up a gap in the Indian ride-hailing market. The startup had about 8,000 electric cars in its fleet but crashed and shut down in early 2025 as multiple corporate governance issues cropped up.  

In the months since then, other EV-only ride-hailing companies have stepped in to fill the gap. Evera Cabs raised $4 Mn from Mufin Green Finance and following this, Kolkata-based Snap-E Cabs raised $2.5 Mn (around INR 22 Cr) in a bridge round. 

Both companies are gunning to add to their EV fleet with this capital infusion, but BluSmart’s collapse was Evera’s gain in many ways. 

The startup acquired 220 electric taxis previously operated by BluSmart in May this year. Later, it proposed a lease arrangement with the company’s creditors and insolvency board to procure 1,000 EVs previously owned by BluSmart.

According to Evera cofounder and CEO Nimish Trivedi, this has already begun to pay off. With additional fleet availability, Evera has been able to fast-track its expansion plans, especially across airport transfers and hourly rentals, where demand has surged sharply in recent quarters, Trivedi told Inc42.

“Honestly, these were numbers we were planning for next year. But the BlueSmart deal allowed us to advance that timeline. And yes, cost-wise, it has definitely helped us strengthen our unit economics further,” he claimed.

Founded by Trivedi, Vikas Bansal, and Rajeev Tiwari in 2019, Evera was incorporated with the goal of building the “Ola or Uber of India,” but completely green.  

The CEO recalled that the original idea was for green energy — having rooftop solar panels that could directly charge EVs — but that “turned out to be the classic ‘chicken-and-egg’ problem”. Should charging infra and support come before the vehicles or was it supposed to be the other way around? 

Perhaps the answer lies in the way Evera went about it. By 2020, Evera had established its first charging infrastructure along with a fleet of 138 cars. This was the bedrock of the business that is now looking to fill the BluSmart vaccuum. 

The Bumpy Pandemic Experience

But even the best laid plans fell to Covid-19 after March 2020. With its cabs idle in garages and no clarity on when operations would resume, Evera was faced with the challenge of repaying debt and loans, while also sustaining the business 

It began earning some social goodwill by partnering with the Delhi government to ferry patients to and from hospitals till 2022. Evera claims to have helped over 60,000 patients between April 2020 and April 2022 under this initiative. 

This unlocked another insight among the three founders: focusing solely on the B2C segment might not be sustainable in the long run. The company therefore ventured into B2B operations, working with corporates for employee transport and business travel. 

This is its core business now, and on the B2C side, it continues to provide airport transfers and has recently launched hourly rental services. Currently, the business is split roughly 80–20, with 80% of revenues coming from B2B operations and 20% from B2C. 

How Evera Built Its First B2C EV Offering

Within B2C, Evera has built several integrated channels — its technology is connected with MakeMyTrip, MojoBox, and other platforms. This allows the company to receive bookings both through its own app and through partner platforms for airport transfers and other transport requirements.

After the lockdowns were completely lifted in India in 2022, Evera launched its first consumer-facing product: fixed-route airport transfers. 

The decision to begin B2C operations at Delhi airport was driven by a clear business case. Handling close to 5.5 Mn passengers a month, the airport presented a massive, consistent demand for reliable transport.

“There was a clear demand-supply gap,” Trivedi said. “During peak hours, passengers had to wait 30 minutes or more for a cab. We realised we could easily fill that gap and ensure assured business. There’s always the certainty of getting rides from there.”

This foray helped Evera establish its B2C presence with a predictable and scalable use case, one that could generate steady demand while strengthening brand visibility. Even a B2B-first company cannot ignore brand building. 

For Evera, entering the consumer market also meant addressing perceptions around EV reliability, pricing, and comfort. This is perhaps why the company is best placed to fill in for BluSmart. 

“We’ve been operating on the B2C side for over three years now, and the numbers have been growing steadily,” added the CEO. “Our main strength lies in maintaining quality standards — zero cancellations, no surge pricing, and trained, uniformed drivers.”

That sounds almost exactly like BluSmart, which eventually walked back its anti-surge pricing promise as the company scaled up. Evera will also deal with such challenges in the future, but the CEO is confident that the startup’s focus on premium experience will eventually win out.  

“If a driver isn’t properly groomed or the car isn’t clean, it doesn’t move out. That discipline allows us to maintain quality and justify a small premium that customers are happy to pay.”

Finding Sustainable Growth: From 138 To 1,000 Cars

Thanks to the BluSmart deal, Evera’s fleet has grown from just 138 cars in 2020 to 436 by 2024, and now stands at around 1,000 electric cars, all operating on a leased model. Out of the total fleet, only about 200 are older Gen 1 vehicles (purchased before 2023), while the rest are newer models with better range, faster charging, and lower maintenance costs, the founder claimed.

The other aspect that’s just as critical in the leasing model is the vehicle optimisation and utilisation. In the early days, Evera struggled with long charging downtimes, sometimes up to eight hours every second day. However, with improved battery technology and newer EVs, the downtime has been cut dramatically to around two hours of charging per shift. 

“We run multiple models: per trip, need-based, rental, and B2C, so there isn’t one utilisation number. Essentially, we ensure our cars run optimally, typically around 16 hours a day, which is the sweet spot for us,” the CEO added.

It’s natural that EV ride-hailing businesses will be compared to BluSmart, but Trivedi was quick to emphasise that Evera is focused on financial discipline, even at this stage, where growth is also on the cards.

The company’s slightly premium pricing on the consumer side gives it room to absorb the higher costs associated with electric fleets, especially the real estate and hub infrastructure needed for charging and maintenance.

“There’s a hub cost involved, unlike CNG cars. Real estate is expensive, so while our running costs are lower, we must ensure every car is sweated properly. That’s the key: high utilisation keeps the economics balanced,” Trivedi explained.

Since its inception, Evera has raised $5 Mn in equity funding, with the latest $4 million pre-Series A round coming from investors earlier this year. 

How Evera Plans To Dominate Delhi’s EV Market

While BluSmart’s abrupt exit has left the EV ride-hailing market wide open across India, Evera’s Trivedi believes the focus on customer experience and driver economics means Evera will never expand too quickly. Besides Evera, the likes of Shoffr are also targetting to grab a share of the highly lucrative premium customer base in the B2B and B2C ride-hailing business. 

According to Trivedi, driver satisfaction is equally critical in this business as customer experience. The premium in terms of pricing allows for better driver incentives and high service standards. This would not be possible by flooding the market with Evera cars. 

Which is arguably why Trivedi sees the growing presence of competitors not as a threat, but as a catalyst for market expansion. More EVs on the roads mean more awareness and familiarity among riders, which benefits everyone in the ecosystem.

Plus, the total addressable market (TAM) in Delhi NCR remains enormous. Of approximately 2.5 Lakh taxis operating daily, only about 3,000 are EVs, leaving a huge gap for growth. With rising environmental consciousness and supportive government policies, Evera sees ample room for expansion across both B2B employee transport and B2C airport and hourly rental services.

Financially, Evera’s trajectory reflects this growth. According to the founder, revenue is projected to double from INR 15 Cr in FY25 to around INR 30 Cr in FY26, driven by fleet expansion and higher utilisation rates. The company’s leased fleet count is expected to reach 2,000 in the next eight months, aided by lease agreements.

While Trivedi hinted that the company would explore new revenue streams such as subscriptions or fleet leasing, expansion beyond Delhi NCR is not on the cards yet. Evera also recently launched a B2C rentals programme, which would also call for some focus. 

“It’s a segment where quality and reliability have often been missing, and we hope to set a new benchmark. With deeper B2C penetration alongside our strong B2B base, our mission remains clear to deliver a seamless EV experience that makes sustainability the default choice for both passengers and drivers,’ Trivedi added.

What’s clear is that Evera has identified areas within ride-hailing and mobility where the customer experience is broken, but so many other companies have tried to fix this and failed. 

Solving this requires long-term patience because standardising too rapidly is simply not possible. The likes of BluSmart and even Ola Cabs have felt these pains in the past, and Rapido is also dealing with it now, in some ways. Quality and premium standards are hard to replicate across India. 

For Evera, the sharp focus on execution has delivered results for now, but the next leg of its journey will be extremely critical as the startup has to answer the same questions that others could not. 

[Edited by Nikhil Subramaniam]