E-scooter maker to raise Rs 30 cr

Bangalore-based Go Green BOV plans to raise Rs 30 crore ($5 million) from private equity firms or impact investors to fuel its expansion. Impact investors want to make a social impact with reasonable returns.

The company, which claims to have developed India's first electric scooter that gives a mileage of 100 km with a single charge, will invest Rs 18 crore to set up an integrated plant to manufacture motors, controllers, ABS plastic parts and other accessories required to assemble electric scooters.

Go Green BOV was set up as a start-up venture in 2007 by Dhivik Reddy, an electronics and communications graduate. Reddy used funds from family and friends to set up the firm and is now looking for PE funds to grow his business.

"Till now, we have invested around Rs 9 crore from our own funds to set up the assembly unit, with an initial capacity of 700 vehicles a month. We are now looking at investing another Rs 22 crore to ramp up the capacity to 1,800 vehicles a month," said Reddy, executive director, Go Green BOV.

The company is currently in talks with several PE firms, venture capitalists and impact investors to raise funds. "We are in active discussion with a Mumbai-based impact investor, who has presence in many countries," said Reddy.

Go Green has acquired 60 acres at Kolar in Karnataka to set up its new plant. It has roped in a South Korean battery maker, along with a Hyderabad-based firm to form a joint venture to set up the plant, which will help the company produce 200 lead acid batteries a day. The company also plans to sell its batteries in the aftermarket. It is in the process of developing its own brand.

"Currently, only Exide Industries manufactures replacement batteries for electric vehicles and sells about 8,000 batteries a month in southern India alone. We intend to compete with them in the open market with our high performance batteries," said Reddy.

Unlike the charging life of 306 cycles of competition, our batteries will last for 427 cycles and we hope to grab a sizeable portion of the market,"

Go Green BOV's latest electric bike 'Kavach' is said to be India's first electric vehicle to give a range of 100 km per electric charge, making it the most energy-efficient bike in the industry.

"We are currently manufacturing only the chassis and we intend to use the funds for setting up a complete product manufacturing house under one roof starting from batteries, chassis, controllers, motors and other components instead of outsourcing," he added.

Having established its presence as a regional player in the fast-growing electric two-wheeler market, Go Green is now looking at expanding its manufacturing, sales and distribution network on the hub-and-spoke model.

"We are currently assembling our scooters at our plant at Kolar near Bangalore. As we are looking to expand into other states, we need to have local assembly lines at key locations. We are planning to make CKD (completely knocked down) kits at our Kolar plant and assemble them at various important locations so as to reach out to our customers faster and at lesser costs," said Reddy.

It currently sells its electric two-wheelers in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.

Go Green is also planning to expand its product offering by introducing nine new models in the next one year. It currently sells three models delivering a mileage between 50 km and 100 km per charge. Also on the cards is a scooter which gives 125 km per charge, he added.