Exponent Energy Raises $5 Million From YourNest VC, Motherson And Others
Motherson Group backs former Ather executives’ startup that charges EV batteries in 15 minutes
Exponent Energy, a technology startup that promises to charge electric vehicles in 15 minutes, has raised $5 million (Rs 38 crore) in an early-stage funding round led by YourNest VC.
Auto parts suppliers Motherson Group, too, participated in the pre-Series A round, besides existing investors such as 3one4 Capital and AdvantEdge VC, according to a company statement.
“We’re excited to deepen our partnership with our existing investors who’ve watched us build from scratch. Motherson coming on board adds immense value to scale with respect to OEM (original equipment maker) relationships and manufacturing partnerships,” Arun Vinayak, co-founder and chief executive officer at Exponent, was quoted as saying in the statement.
The company said it would use the funds to begin commercial operations and scale it across multiple cities, starting with Bengaluru, from early 2022. A part of the investment will also go toward hiring across product and engineering teams and double-down on its software products to create a seamless customer experience.
(From left) Arun Vinayak and Sanjay Byalal, co- founders of Exponent Energy. (Source: Exponent Energy)
Founded by Vinayak, former chief product officer at Ather Energy, and Sanjay Byalal Jagannath, former hardware strategy sourcing and cell strategy lead at the electric scooter startup, Exponent aims to simplify the complicated, expensive and slow ‘EV energy train’—the flow of energy between the charger and battery. The company has developed a propriety battery management system.
“We realised for all of India to go electric, we need the technology that is built for India, and we thought of building a technology layer that OEMs can adopt for transition to electric,” Vinayak told BloombergQuint. “We realised the problem was solved from the supply side, but the energy space is not solved like where to charge the battery, lifecycle, time taken to charge and others, and we are fixing those problems.”
According to Vinayak, EVs today take anywhere between four and eight hours to charge with batteries that last 1,000 cycles, creating a broken energy ecosystem. “Long charge times lead to poor charging station utilisation, making them unprofitable as a business, and leading to a scarce network presence. A short battery life drives battery pack financing skyhigh, further adding pressure to the end-consumer and hampering EV adoption.”
To solve this, the company recently unveiled its battery pack and charging station E-pack and E-pump that together unlocks a 15-minute rapid charge and gives a 3,000 cycle life warranty for charging Li-ion batteries. To begin with, the company plans to collaborate with OEMs in the cargo vehicle space and deploy a citywide charging network with select partners.
“As the auto industry adopts EVs, we want to remain a key player and partnering startups like Exponent gives us a head-start to be able to build offerings that help us to continue to expand and achieve our broader vision,” Laksh Vaaman Sehgal, vice chairman at Motherson Group, said in the statement.