Exponent Energy raises $5 million to build 15-min rapid charging solutions for commercial EVs

Exponent Energy cofounders Arun Vinayak (L) & Sanjay Byalal (R)

Exponent Energy, a startup working on bringing rapid charging solutions to electric vehicles (EVs) in India, has raised $5 million funding from existing investors YourNest VC, 3one4 Capital and AdvantEdge VC. Motherson Group, a leading global supplier of automotive components, also participated in the funding round.

Founded by former Ather Energy chief product officer Arun Vinayak with his colleague Sanjay Byalal in late 2020, Exponent Energy says it has developed a technology that can charge any electric vehicle from 0-100% within 15 minutes.

"If you look at EVs today, the ride experience has become better, due to which the 0-1 shift has happened across multiple categories. However, everything on the energy side in EVs is still very slow, broken and expensive, which is really holding back the adoption in the country," Vinayak told Moneycontrol.

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He said EVs currently take anywhere between four to eight hours to charge batteries that last around 1,000 cycles, which leads to poor utilization of charging stations. This makes these stations unprofitable as a business since they are able to sell energy to only two or three vehicles on a given day.

"Due to this, the charging network doesn't organically grow. To combat the range anxiety and slow charging, OEMs also have to opt for a larger battery size, which makes the vehicle expensive and heavy. A short battery life also makes the financing for battery packs expensive" Vinayak said.

Bengaluru-based Exponent Energy hopes to change this situation with its products. The startup came out of stealth mode in November this year to debut a Flexible Energy Stack - a combination of hardware and software solutions - that provides a 15-minute rapid charge on a wide range of affordable Li-ion cells as well as gives a 3,000 cycle life warranty.

Also read: Work underway to set up EV charging stations at 22,000 of 70,000 petrol pumps in country: Govt

The firm said this was made possible due to its proprietary battery management system and charging algorithms, that's layered on top of the design of its battery pack called E-pack, along with its common charging station called E-pump. This solution will support charging from 40 volts to 800 volts.

Vinayak said this technology will enable smaller batteries to become more viable in electric vehicles, wherein people can 'recharge like they refuel' whenever they need, which also makes the charging network infrastructure more profitable since they can charge anywhere between 30-50 vehicles on a given day. This will also allow OEMs to sell vehicles with more optimized battery sizes with longer financing tenures.

Commercial operations from early 2022

The funds raised from this round will be used to kickstart its commercial operations in early 2022, starting with Bengaluru and then expanding it to multiple cities. "Motherson coming on board adds a lot of strategic value for us with respect to OEM relationships and manufacturing partnerships" he said.

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"As the auto industry adopts EVs, we want to remain a key player, and partnering with startups like Exponent gives us a head start to be able to build offerings that help us continue to expand and achieve our broader vision," said Laksh Vaaman Sehgal, Vice Chairman, Motherson Group.

The proceeds will also be used to build more software products, employ a deployment team for smooth operations and strengthen its product and engineering teams. Exponent Energy currently has about 27 employees with plans to expand to over 50 employees in the next few months.

"The Exponent team has combined their deep insights from the EV and energy distribution systems in India with core IP innovation to solve a long-standing challenge through a disruptive yet elemental set of modalities," said Pranav Pai, Founding Partner, 3one4 Capital. "With the radical reforms that are being rolled out in the country, this technology will be a natural enabler of India's shift into sustainable energy and mobility infrastructure."

Focus on cargo vehicles

While Exponent Energy's technology works across various form factors, it is initially focusing on last-mile three-wheeler and four-wheeler cargo vehicles due to a lot of inbound demand from logistics players and aggregators.

"There are three stakeholders for us - those who buy cargo vehicles and run them, those who build cargo vehicles, and the charging partners who want to charge up these cargo vehicles and make money on the energy side. We are working with all three stakeholders and our success comes in ensuring all these folks win," Vinayak said.

The startup is working with OEMs that are building three wheeler and four wheeler cargo vehicles to integrate their batteries. "So you will see us having vehicles from one of these OEMs with our batteries integrated very soon," he said.

In terms of charging partners, the firm is signing up small business owners and commercial property owners among others, who are keen to buy charge stations, set them up and monetize the charging process.