Early-stage investor Kalaari Capital has led a seed funding round of $2.2 million in a battery technology start-up, Clean Electric. The round also saw the participation of other prominent investors such as Climate Angels, LV Fund, 7Square Ventures, and CIIE Regional Innovation Foundation.
With this funding, Clean Electric plans to set up a manufacturing facility in Pune to produce 5,000 battery packs every month. It will also use the funds for R&D, expanding teams across sales and operations, and developing new products.
Abhinav Roy, Co-founder, and CTO at Clean Electric said that they want to make a difference in the electric vehicle segment. “By providing dependable, safe, and performant energy storage solutions, we believe we can add immense value to the electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy ecosystems.”
Clean Electric was founded in 2020 by IIT alumni Akash Gupta and Abhinav Ray. The Bhopal-based start-up manufactures and develops energy storage solutions as well as EV-related infrastructure and services. The company has also built liquid-cooled battery solutions for two and three-wheelers along with battery-swapping applications.
The investors noted that the start-up is providing a much-needed push to India’s battery technology ecosystem.
“India’s EV solutions will become global postulates. Next decade is going to witness the surge of EVs, expected to grow from the current ~1.4M to ~50M by 2030. India’s expectations of efficiency, performance, and safety of batteries under diverse and extreme constraints ranging from terrain to climate will seed global innovation. Clean Electric’s direct liquid cooled battery packs will become the benchmark, offering the highest safety while maximizing its life and efficiency. IITians Akash and Abhinav have invented zero kelvin packs which have the potential to meet growing needs of today and future.” said Ravinder Singh, Partner at Kalaari Capital.
The company’s products have been in the pilot testing phase with multiple original equipment manufacturers across the country. They have, so far, undergone on-road testing of more than 30,000 km. The company claimed that they will be ready for certification tests before the end of this year.
Start your day, the smart way!
Top tech news of the day and daily motivation, delivered to your inbox.