EV public charging point player CHARGE+ZONE eyes $100 million fund raise

Having set up 20 such EV charging points across 1,000 km on some national highways, the firm is now looking to cover over 10,000 km in the country

On the back of a successful electrification of 1000 kms across multiple national highways with its unmanned electric vehicle (EV) charging points, Vadodara-based CHARGE+ZONE is now looking to raise $100 million for network expansion.

Having set up 20 such EV charging points, including 15 company-owned company-operated (COCO), across 1,000 km on national highways like Ahmedabad-Rajkot, Mumbai-Nashik, Mumbai-Pune and Delhi-Jaipur, CHARGE+ZONE is now looking to cover over 10,000 km in the country.
 

Deployed at convenient and strategic locations along the highway, CHARGE+ZONE's unmanned charging stations are rapid DC charging points with CCS2 as charging protocol, catering to electric four-wheelers. These stations can provide up to 80 per cent charge in 45-60 minutes and full charge in 90-120 minutes, depending on the EV’s battery size.

According to CHARGE+ZONE founder and CEO Kartikey Hariyani, apart from its larger goal of electrifying 10,000 km of national and state highways over the next 3-5 years, the company also plans to have a robust network of one million EV charging points by 2030.

"Through our national highway electrification program, we have successfully implemented full stack EV charging solutions across multiple cities and states that are accessible, affordable and easy to use. We have already spent a million US dollars on fast chargers and are looking forward to engaging with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) even as we set up more charging stations and more points at each station. Now, as part of the expansion, we are looking for a 'Series A' round of $75-100 million," Hariyani told Business Standard.

With the charging points being Internet of Things (IoT) enabled, the same are unmanned and connected with the company's mainstay operating system (OS) Charge Cloud, thereby managing not just payments and charging but also data around usage and duration, among other things.

Since its inception, CHARGE+ZONE has created an active B2B and B2C network for EV charging stations for both fleet and retail customers by setting up over 1,250 charging points across 650 EV charging stations serving around 4000 EVs on a daily basis. The company also operates on a dealer-operated company-owned (DOCO) model for the charging points.

Going forward, the company is also working on a separate vertical for battery swapping even as it awaits the policy from Niti Aayog.