Exponent Energy (e^), an Electric vehicle (EV) fast-charging startup, announced it has raised $13 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to ET report.
Existing institutional investors such as YourNest VC, 3one4 Capital & AdvantEdge VC also participated in the funding round.
The new round will help scale e^ pump network to 100 locations/city, starting with Namma Bengaluru, scale up e^pack production, and deliver freedom & flexibility with more exponent-enabled EVs on the road starting this October, according to the startup’s LinkedIn page.
“We will be running the only profitable charging network in the world,” Arun Vinayak, cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Exponent Energy, told ET. “You have to sell more energy on a piece of land which is a deep-tech problem, about building a battery, a charging network, and ensuring that energy throughput is sorted out.”
Vinayak said the current slow-charging stations are inefficient as they take up valuable real estate for three-four hours, taking the total cost to the end user up to Rs 20 to 24 per unit of electricity. Exponent claims its solutions can bring down the cost to Rs 12-15 per unit.
“Rapid charging flips the economics of a charging station,” he said. Usually, a battery pack can only be charged 1,000 times before its health starts to give up, and the range reduces. Exponent claims its battery pack can do 3,000 charging cycles without affecting the health.
“For us, Exponent is thinking through all the filters that we think are critical,” Harsha Kumar, partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners, told ET. “First, a GTM (go-to-market) that focuses on commercial vehicles, second fast charging as a proposition – which we thought was imperative for the segment – and the third being affordability, that is, if you are offering this product, it cannot be significantly more expensive than what is out there.”
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