Charge+Zone Expects to Raise $125mn in Ongoing Series A2 Funding Round

A Bangalore-based startup that delves in rapid charging of electric vehicles, Exponent Energy, has pocketed $26.4 million in a Series B round that was led by Eight Roads Ventures. It also entailed a strategic investment from TDK Ventures. Other participants in the round included existing investors such as Lightspeed, YourNest VC, 3one4 Capital, AdvantEdge VC, and the family office of Pawan Munjal. In 2022, Exponent Energy raked up $13 million in its Series A round led by Lightspeed. To date, it has raised $44.4 million. This also included a $6 million pre Series A round in December 2021. Bengaluru-based Exponent will make use of funds raised to expand its presence to five new cities by Financial Year 2024. Additionally, Exponent Energy also wanted to scale its offering in the electric three wheelers space. It has set sights on entering the intercity e-bus sector in 2024. Led by Arun Vinayak and Sanjay Byalal,  Exponent Energy is full stack energy company that builds chargers, batteries and everything in between to unlock 15-minute rapid charging for EVs. The firm aspires deployment of 1,000 charging stations and have 25,000 electric vehicles powered by Exponent by 2025. The firm's average run rate was pegged at more than INR 2 crore a month in revenue in FY24, which it will reach INR 600 crore by 2025. 

EV charging firm Charge+Zone, has reached completion on the first phase for the installation of more than 1,600 charging stations. These have been established across over 450 locations. At the same time, the firm has now set sights on raising $125mn crore in equity in an ongoing round of fundraising. The Founders of the firm are already in conversations with investors, whose names are yet to be disclosed. The fundraising will be part of the Series A2 funding round. The funds raised will primarily be deployed to accelerate the next phase of expansion of its retail network in State and National Highway charging infrastructure, product R&D and a strategic investment in e-mobility companies.

So far, Charge+Zone has raised $54 million from investors through a combination of equity and debt.

The firm maintains that highways and urban charging has emerged as the fastest-growing and most profitable business verticals for it over the last three quarters. Through partnerships with leading Indian and global electric cars and electric commercial vehicle manufacturers, the firm says it has installed fast chargers across key highways in the country ensuring convenient accessible and seamless charging experience for electric vehicle owners.

Kartikey Hariyani, Founder & CEO, Charge+Zone said, “The completion of the first phase of our highway charging network is a testament to our vision of accelerating India’s transition to green mobility. Since our inception, our goal has been to build a robust EV charging infrastructure all across the country and we have been fortunate to have a team of investors and industry stakeholders to back us in this journey.  With the next phase of expansion underway, our aim is to raise a fresh round of investments that will enable us to achieve our target network size of 5,000 fast chargers on the State and National highways by 2025.”

“Our high-speed supercharging network will significantly reduce charging time, enabling us to serve more than 75,000 EVs including e-buses, e-trucks, and e-cars per day, reducing carbon emissions and supporting India’s carbon neutrality goal by 2070. Additionally, we will also roll out another 1,000 charging stations by the end of 2023, focusing on selected regions and expanding nationwide,” he added.

At present, 80% of the firm’s charging stations are Company Owned Company Operated (COCO) while the remaining are under an industry-first scheme availability and functionality.

Charge+Zone has established partnerships with companies like Audi, Hyundai Motor India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ashok Leyland, Volvo-Eicher, Tata Motors, BluSmart, SnapE, Everest Fleet. As of March 2023, Charge+Zone has more than 3,500 charging points, 1,500+ EV charging stations in operations or construction in 37 Indian cities and has covered more than 15,000km of highways and aims to reach one million charging points by 2030.