Startup Street: This Startup Wants To Scale Up India’s Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
Here’s what went on this week on Startup Street.
This week on Startup Street, we have a company that’s working towards making India ready for the transition to electric vehicles. One of India’s most active startup programmes, the Kerala Startup Mission, took eight startups to Singapore for global exposure. And Microsoft expands its startup financing initiative in India through its venture capital arm, M12.
Electric Mobility Opportunity
Magenta Power plans to set up around 500 charging points for electric vehicles across India by the end of the current financial year.
That may be a lofty ambition for a three-year-old startup, which currently has set up only 46 such points—two of which are solar-powered. But Maxson Lewis and Darryl Dias, the startup’s co-founders, are betting on the government’s push for electric vehicles.
The Mumbai-based firm has entered into partnerships with companies including Mahindra Electric Mobility Ltd., for setting up dedicated charging stations in Bengaluru for its Mahindra Treo Electric 3-wheeler, and optician Lawrence and Mayo, to set up electric vehicle charging points at their showrooms across India.
“The electric vehicle ecosystem has a very quick, fast, easy approach...,” Lewis told BloombergQuint in an interview. “If there is a value for money in place, people will transition to the new technology very quickly.”
The government expects around 30 percent of the total vehicles on roads will be electric vehicles by 2030, necessitating the need to build a robust electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the country. The Niti Aayog, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has sought stakeholder feedback on a proposal to allow only electric motorbikes and scooters in the next 6-8 years. The Indian auto industry rejected the pitch saying the timeline is impractical.
Lewis however said the transition to electric two- and three-wheelers is feasible, and that startups will be ready with the required infrastructure in time.
Electric vehicle ecosystem belongs to startups...It is the startups of India that are going to drive the electric vehicle ecosystem [in the country], and not the classical orients.Maxson Lewis, Co-Founder, Magenta Power
An electric two-wheeler takes around an hour to get fully charged. Each unit is priced at Rs 20 and the average requirement is around three to four units of electricity, Lewis said. “Rs 20 of power allows them to travel for 40 km, that’s 50 paise per km.”
Magenta Power, which has installed charging stations for two-wheelers and three-wheelers and cars, hasn’t tapped into the heavy vehicle segment yet.
Foraying Into Smaller Cities
Magenta Power—which began with the installation of rooftop solar panels for housing complexes and businesses—is working on the prototype of its mobile solar electric vehicle charging kit that it aims to launch in tier-II and tier-III cities in the middle of July. Lewis said the market for electric vehicles is growing rapidly in these areas.
He refused to divulge other details about the kit but said it can be deployed anywhere to reduce pain-points related to land acquisition—a major issue in the hinterland. The intent is to have all the charging stations to be solar-powered, but the economics don’t work out yet, he said.
While many startups, including Sun Mobility and Ather Energy, are working towards boosting charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, some of India’s biggest automakers and researchers suggest the country isn’t ready for the transformation yet.
Electric passenger vehicles and two-wheelers account for less than 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said in a white paper. It raised concerns around their scalability due to the lack of consumers’ acceptance, manufacturing, comparable products (especially in the two-wheeler category), affordability gap and non-existent public charging infrastructure.
But there’s hope.
In February, the government issued guidelines to set up charging stations for electric vehicles across the country, outlining ways to build one such fuelling point every 25 kilometres.
GTM Research, a market research firm, which expects up to 40 million electric vehicle charging points worldwide by 2030, said in a report that India “is definitely a geography to keep an eye on”, purely because its size and population make it highly likely to experience localised electric vehicle growth.
App, Training Centres
The company has set up an integrated mobile phone application—ChargeGrid App—that allows people to track nearby charging stations, book slots in advance and make payments.
It also runs the Magenta Innovation Training and Research Academy, or MITRA, providing training to people interested in the segment. The academy, the company said, has so far conducted nine sessions and trained over 100 people.
Kerala Startups Get Global Exposure At Innovation Fest
Eight startups incubated under the Kerala Startup Mission grabbed the spotlight at the Innovfest Inbound 2019, Southeast Asia’s largest innovation festival in Singapore.
After pitching their products and ideas there, some of the startups have also been invited by various countries to introduce their products, the government-backed startup incubator said in a statement.
The eight startups are:
- Agrima Infotech.
- Resfeber Infosolutions.
- Ignitarium.
- Indograce Ecommerce.
- Alcodex Technologies.
- TutorComp Infotech India.
- Caspar Technologies.
- Freelance Teams.
These startups showcased their products at the two-day event, which concluded on Friday, to at least 15,000 entrepreneurs, brands, corporates, investors and tech startups from over 100 countries, the statement said.
The mission has so far taken nearly 120 startups to international destinations, enabling them to establish market access in different countries, it said.
With inputs from PTI
Microsoft’s Commitment To India
Microsoft Inc. will help startups embrace their next phase of growth with its venture capital subsidiary M12.
“The introduction of M12, Microsoft’s venture fund in India is creating a new value for startups, venture capitals and the company itself to maintain the pace and direction of innovation,” Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari told the news agency PTI.
He said Microsoft has been playing a vital role in nurturing the startup community in India and across the world. “With our intelligent tech expertise, deep focus on trust and unique global go-to market partnering, we empower unicorns and startups to scale sustainably at a global level,” he said. “We remain excited about India’s entrepreneurial startup potential and will continue to accelerate it as a growth engine for the economy.”
The platform, Maheshwari said, played a critical role in making startups enterprise-ready and has been evolving its approach from “partnering to partnership”—where they build solutions on top of Microsoft’s technology platform—adding value for customers, and creating new revenue opportunities.
This is one of the many startup programmes Microsoft has in India. ‘Microsoft for Startups’ is another, which has closed over 120 co-sell deals worth more than $126 million for startups in less than 18 months, said Lathika Pai, the programme’s India head.