Exponent Energy Private Limited is a tech-focused startup developing fast-charging solutions for electric vehicles. The company has successfully raised $5 million in a pre-series A funding round led by YourNest Venture Capital, an early-stage investor, along with the dedicated participation of Motherson Group, AdvantEdge VC, and 3one4 Capital.
The collected funds will be used to initiate commercial operations and leverage them across various cities, beginning with Bengaluru in 2022. The funds will also be used for hiring across engineering and product teams, along with doubling down on software products.
The company was founded by Ather Energy’s ex-CPO Arun Vinayak and Sanjay Byalal. Also, the company claims to offer a solution that can unlock 15-minute rapid charging for electric vehicles with the help of regular lithium-ion cells and simultaneously maintain a charging cycle count of 3000. It is further said that such a landscape is possible only due to its proprietary battery management system, unique pack design, and charging algorithms.
Vinayak also mentions that electric vehicles take around 4 to 8 hours to charge the battery, furthermore initiating a broken ecosystem. He also stated that long charge time could pave the way to poor charging station utilization, ultimately making them unprofitable to business and can lead to scarce network presence. In addition, the slow charging can lead to many unoptimized batteries making the vehicles expensive and bulky. However, the short battery life fuels the battery pack financing sky-high and also adds to the pressure on the end consumers, thereby hampering electric vehicle adoption. However, Exponent focuses on simplifying such a complex landscape by developing improved energy solutions for electric vehicles which are affordable and instantaneous.
Recently, the ministry of heavy industries has started flagship schemes like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC), and FAME India II scheme for automobile and auto component companies. Such national schemes are executed by the government with an effective sanction of a total outlay of rupees 54,038 crores.
Furthermore, the growing demand for an electric charging station in India is inducing automobile companies to develop forays to the electric vehicle segment. Thereby in order to cash in such growing demand, the companies like Tata Power, Reliance Industries, and others have initiated the installation of charging stations aggressively. However, several other automobile companies investing heavily in the electric vehicle sector include aerial mobility firm, electric scooter manufacturer Ather Energy, The ePlane Company, and Ohm Mobility.
