Indian battery-swapping startup raises seed funding in Orios-led round

India-based battery-swapping startup Battery Smart announced it has raised an undisclosed amount in its seed funding round led by early-stage VC firm Orios Venture Partners.

Photo credit: Battery Smart

Angel investment platform Faad Network also participated in the funding round.

Battery Smart provides advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric rickshaws on a membership basis. Drivers can stop at any of the company’s partner swapping stations and get a fully charged battery to replace a discharged unit.

The company has also partnered with local stores along high-traffic routes, enabling an additional source of income for shop owners. Its small store partners are provided with smart chargers and a mobile app to run the swap operations at their premises.

“The earnings of e-rickshaw drivers is capped as they use lead acid batteries that need 10 hours of charging time and have a limited battery life of six months,” said Battery Smart co-founder Pulkit Khurana in a statement.

Currently, the company has 25 operational battery swap stations in Delhi, with over 1,000 battery swaps being done every week on its network. It aims to set up 300 of such stations in Delhi-NCR by the end of the year and bring 5,000 electric rickshaw drivers on its platform in the next 10 months.

See also: Trending in Asia: Wireless charging, a management framework, and a new breed of smart devices

Orios Venture Partners has also backed companies including Pharmeasy, GoMechanic, Country Delight, Beato, ShopG, Gullynetwork, and Zupee among others.