EverSource Capital’s Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF), one of India’s largest climate impact funds, said it has picked up majority stake in electric vehicle fleet operator Lithium Urban Technologies Pvt Ltd (Lithium).
While the financial details were not disclosed, it is understood to have invested over $50 million (around Rs 380 crore) in a combination of primary and secondary transaction rounds.
EverSource Capital takes majority stake to rapidly scale technology, fleet and pan-India charging infrastructure, in the biggest deal in the EV passenger mobility segment, both companies said in a joint statement.
This is the sixth investment by EverSource Capital, which marked the final close of GGEF at $741 million in January. More than 50% has been deployed from the fund so far.
GGEF is a climate fund anchored by the governments of India and the UK and managed by EverSource Capital, a 50:50 joint venture between Everstone Capital and European solar energy developer Lightsource BP.
The fund’s previous investments include after Ayana Renewable, Radiance Renewables, GreenCell Mobility, Everenviro Resource Management and Kathari Water.
Meanwhile, Lithium is the first investment by EverSource which has not been incubated by the investor and was built inorganically outside of the fund.
With Lithium, EverSource will provide B2B e-mobility solutions across passenger and freight segments. The freshly infused funds will be primarily invested in enhancing the technology platform, expansion of vehicle fleet, development of new vehicle platforms and rapid expansion of its pan-India charging infrastructure, the statement said.
Presently, Lithium provides employee transportation services to companies via its fleet of 2000 electric vehicles, of which the deployment currently is lesser owing to the coronavirus pandemic. It also has a network of over 600 charging stations.
“In the next 18-24 months we are now looking to increase that to 6,000 fleet… and these will be not only just passenger vehicles but passenger freight plus buses… EverSource brings to us not only financial capital, but deep domain experience and whole green cell mobility bus, said Sanjay Krishnan, Founder and CEO, Lithium.
Eversource’s fund infusion allows us to not only acquire more vehicles, to develop bespoke vehicles, expand our charging infrastructure and provide a variety of vehicles for which are application specific to the clients, both on the passenger side as well as on the freight side, he added that this will include inorganic growth.
Lithium claims to operate the largest fleet of four-wheeler passenger EVs in the world, outside of China.
Incorporated in October 2014 in Bengaluru, Lithium is among the largest operators of electric cars in India, providing services to over 50 marquee clients since July 2015 and has presence across 15 cities.
The venture was founded by Sanjay Krishnan and Ashwin Mahesh.
“With the fresh infusion, we are looking to serve our clients as a one-stop shop for their people and freight mobility requirements across the country and subsequently in global markets. Our aim is to help reduce transportation costs and operational complexity while raising the bar on transparency and employee safety along with a drastic reduction in their carbon footprint,” Krishnan said.
Krishnan also plans to expand its team with new senior management appointments in the coming months.
The deal gives an exit to some angel and two major existing investors - Lightrock India (formerly LGT Lightstone) and International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank.
Early 2019, Zurich-headquartered impact investor, then known as LGT Impact, had bet around Rs 78 crore (around $11 million) on Lithium. A year prior to that, IFC had proposed to invest up to $8 million (Rs 53 crore) in the company.
“With Lithium’s unique, differentiated and competitive e-mobility offering, we aim to build it into a rapidly scalable, world-class business generating superior financial returns…We also foresee a huge synergistic benefit with our other platform, ‘GreenCell Mobility’, regarding co-development of new application-specific electric vehicles, rolling out and cross utilisation of charging and energy infrastructure..,” Dhanpal Jhaveri, CEO, EverSource Capital.
