Bengaluru-based electric scooter startup kWh Bikes raised $2 million (around Rs 14.8 crore) in a seed round led by LetsVenture and joined by Better Capital and Cloud Capital.
Several existing angel investors also took part in the round including Renu Satti, ex-CEO of Paytm Payments Bank; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO of Paytm; Rajiv Nazareth of ALF Engineering; Paresh Sukthankar, ex-deputy MD of HDFC Bank; Dipak Gupta, MD of Kotak; Matt Van Horn, co-founder of Lyft; and Haresh Chawla, ex-group CEO of Network 18.
The round also included Ravish Naresh, CEO of Khatabook; Rohit Chanana of Sarcha Advisors; Hitesh Oberoi, CEO of Info Edge; T Gautham Pai, MD of Manipal Media; Gaurav Munjal, CEO of Unacademy; and Kirill Kozhevnikov, partner at RTP Global.
With the new round of capital the startup aims to take its prototype to production and expand R&D across various EV components like battery, battery management systems, vehicle control unit, and motor.
“With these funds, we are gearing up to extensively test our prototype, continue our work on components like the battery, motor, and VCU, get them homologated, and enter into batch production. The fact that we are a vertically integrated and not an assembled product helps us get superior performance and in the long term that is what will matter. The best product will win, and we are confident about that being ours,” Siddharth Janghu, co-founder and CEO of kWh Bikes, said.
Founded in March 2020 by Siddharth Janghu and Kartik Gupta, kWh Bikes currently caters to the Indian B2B EV market and soon plans to be available for retail users as well.
The EV segment has seen continuous inflows in investments this year. EV-based last-mile delivery service provider Zypp Electric raised $7 million in a Series A round co-led by 9Unicorns and Anthill Ventures.
Last month, EV infrastructure platform Revos raised $4 million in a Series A funding round led by Prime Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures.
In July, lithium-ion battery-powered two-wheelers maker Hero Electric Vehicles raised Rs 220 crore ($29.5 million) in the first part of its Series B round of funding led by Gulf Islamic Investments, a UAE-based financial services firm.
