Pune-based BatteryPool Raises Funds from IAN & Others

Pune-based BatteryPool has raised an undisclosed amount of growth capital as part of its seed funding round. The startup offers battery charging solutions for EV fleets and commercial vehicles.

The round was led by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and the Pune-based Venture Center under the NIDHI-Seed Support Scheme, and lead investors, including Arjun Seth and Harshavardhan Chitale, participated in this round. Previously, the company had raised grants from the Department of Science and Technology (GoI) and an angel round along with the 100X.VC investment.

The freshly infused capital will be utilised to scale up BatteryPool’s business development efforts and add new fleet charging products to its portfolio, said the firm in an official statement.

Ashwin Shankar, Founder of BatteryPool, said, “We identified that while EVs made sense commercially, challenges around battery charging can lead to downtime of commercial and fleet electric vehicles. Battery swapping can serve as a viable option to eliminate this downtime.”

“However, existing battery swapping services require fleet operators and drivers to conform to a certain battery standard and this can be expensive and significantly restrict the fleet operations to where these services are being offered,” he said.

“Therefore, we built hardware that is agnostic to battery type and can be used by fleet operators regardless of the battery standards being used in their fleets. Our key focus is to cater to EV fleet operators and commercial electric vehicles via partnerships with OEMs, and battery pack manufacturers. We appreciate the support of our vision by IAN and marquee investors,” Shankar added.

BatteryPool states that at present it is solving a key challenge via its flagship product: developing a smart battery-swapping station for fleet and commercial EVs. The swapping station is battery agnostic and software-enabled, allowing fleets and commercial EV drivers to swap their batteries and eliminate any downtime caused by charging their vehicles. The firm’s customers include has some of the largest two- and three-wheeler EV fleets.

Arjun Seth, Lead Investor at IAN, said, “The EV ecosystem in India is evolving rapidly. The use case of going electric is well-known as running costs for fleet operators contract. By 2030, the fleet and commercial vehicle charging market size is set to reach $2.7 billion, as these will become electrified.”

“BatteryPool is walking on a path to capture a huge opportunity with India witnessing a rapid shift to electric mobility in the two and three-wheeler segment, which is where EV adoption will see tremendous velocity. We will offer our proprietary software and hardware solutions and embrace a collaborative platform as we build on our partnerships with OEMs and fleet operators,” added Seth.

Founded in 2018, the startup’s tech stack provides real-time, actionable insights to fleet operators to eliminate operational challenges in running EVs and improve utilisation of the vehicles.

BatteryPool claims to have recently signed large contracts/POs with one of India’s largest e-rickshaw fleets. It is also planning to introduce Smart Plug-In chargers for fleet/commercial EVs without swappable battery packs in the near future.