Battery Smart mops up $45 Mn in new funding round

Battery tech startup Battery Smart has raised $45 million in a new round from investors including Acacia Inclusion Limited, MUFG Bank, Blume Ventures, The Ecosystem Integrity Fund, and British International Investment.

The board at Battery Smart has passed a special resolution to issue 87,113 Series B CCPS at an issue price of Rs 43,203 each to raise Rs 376.35 crore ($45 million), its regulatory filing accessed from the Registrar of Companies shows.

Acacia Inclusion led the round with Rs 124.75 crore while MUGF Bank and Blume Ventures participated with Rs 93.56 crore and 41.58 crore respectively. Ecosystem Integrity Fund pumped in Rs 41.58 crore and British International Investment and PC-SBI Kurashi Visionary Fund joined the round with Rs 49.90 crore and Rs 24.94 crore.

After the allotment of the new round, the firm’s early backer Blume Ventures holds a major 14.43% stake while Acacia Inclusion and Ecosystem Integrity command 9.83% and 6.56%, respectively.

As per TheKredible estimates, the Gurugram-based company raised the new money at a valuation of Rs 2,830 crore or $341 million. This is a 62.5% jump in its worth from the $210 million valuation in the pre-Series B financing round in November last year.

The round appears to be an ongoing one and BatterySmart is likely to raise more money and its valuation will vary accordingly.

Inc42 reported the development first.

In July last year, the company raised $33 million in pre-Series B round and has scooped up more than $120  million to date from Tiger Global, Orios Venture Partners, Shimshon Finance, and Baring Private Equity.

Battery Smart provides advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric two and three-wheelers which can be swapped with fully charged ones in just a few minutes at any of its swapping stations. Its battery-as-a-service (BaaS) solution helps customers to save high upfront costs.

Since its inception, the company claims to have expanded to 1,000 swapping stations across 30 cities and completed over 35 million battery swaps. The firm has a presence in Haryana, NCR, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

For the fiscal year ending in March 2023, Battery Smart registered a seven-fold jump in its revenue to Rs 55.8 crore as compared to Rs 7.95 crore in FY22. As per Thekredible, its losses jumped 4.9X to Rs 64.51 crore during FY23 from Rs 13.08 crore in the previous fiscal year. The firm is yet to file its audited results for FY24.

Battery Smart competes with Sun Mobility, Bounce Infinity, Lithium Power, Lohum, Chargeup, and RACEnergy, among others.