Electric ride-hailing startup BluSmart hasraised $24 million in a new equity roundwith participation and over-subscription from existing investors, founders and leadership team, the company announced on Thursday. BluSmart, which competes with larger cab booking services such as Ola and Uber, said it will deploy the capital to build large-scale EV chargingstations. Currently, BluSmart operatesover 5,500 EVs and more than 4,000 EV chargers across 34 EV charging‘Superhubs’. The company operates thelargest EV charging Superhub infrastructure spreadacross 1.3 million square feetin Delhi NCR and Bengaluru.
BluSmart’s existing investors include BP Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures, Mayfield India Fund, Survam Partners, LetsVenture, 9Unicorns, Trifecta Capital, Green Frontier Capital, Alteria Capital, Black Soil, Stride Ventures and others.
BluSmart has secured long-term and sustainable EV asset financing ofaround $200 million backed by leading Development Financial Institutions (DFIs). The startup said it aims to scale to nearly 8,000 EVs fleet size across Delhi NCR and Bengaluru by next year.
Tushar Garg, CEO, BluSmart Charging business said EV charging infrastructure is the biggestbottleneck for large-scale EV adoption and is also the single largest opportunity. Cities havechallenges with finite prime locations and lack of adequate power load.”
According to the available data, India’s online taxi services market was pegged at Rs 30.72 billion in FY 2020 and is likely to grow at a CAGR of 12.93 per cent between FY 2021 and FY 2025 to reach Rs 55.15 billion by FY25.