EV charging network Bolt.Earth eyes profitability next year; IPO to follow

CEO of India's largest EV charging network says it would be first such firm to turn profitable; expects revenue to grow fourfold in FY27

India’s largest electric vehicle (EV) charging network Bolt.Earth, which enjoys a 63 per cent share of the country’s public charging market, expects to turn profitable in 2026-27 (FY27), followed by an IPO over the next few months amid rising EV adoption in Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

 

It would be the first EV charging network provider to turn profitable, claimed CEO S Raghav Bharadwaj.

 

Having deployed over 100,000 chargers across 1,800 cities and towns (including Lakshadweep), the company aims to deploy 1 million chargers annually by 2028 as it enters its next stage of growth.

 

“We expect to turn profitable by mid next year, and that gives us a clear line of sight to start preparing for an IPO. Both we and our investors see a potential listing around 2027 or early 2028. Globally, there are already public EV charging companies, and I see India heading in the same direction as EV adoption scales,” Bharadwaj said. 

“Today, EVs are visible on Indian roads, but they aren’t the majority yet. Once we reach the tipping point where EVs outnumber petrol vehicles, the market takes off like a rocket ship and that’s when the charging ecosystem really scales. Interestingly, despite the global push, I haven’t seen a single profitable EV charging company anywhere in the world so far. Cracking profitability in this sector puts us in a unique position,” he said.

 

In the current financial year, the company is likely to post $5 million revenue which would grow four-fold to $20 million next year, Bharadwaj told Business Standard.

 

The reason behind better returns on investment (RoI) and road to profitability lies in its business model, he says.

 

“Most CPOs (charge point operators) invest heavily in fast chargers, where a single four-wheeler DC installation can cost ₹10-15 lakh and take 8-12 years to pay back, longer than the equipment’s lifespan. We flipped the model. We sell chargers to ‘hosts’ like apartments and offices, who earn from every session and share revenues with us. Charging economics work from day one, making it far more scalable for India,” the CEO of the Bangalore-based company said.

 

This makes the economics viable and also ensures better utilisation as only those “hosts” would opt for buying the hardware who have a population of EVs that need public charging, he said. Charging tariffs range between ₹20-30 per unit or so.

 

Bharadwaj said that their average utilisation rate is around 18-20 per cent or so across their network.

 

Around 60 per cent of new 3-wheelers are electric, while in two wheelers EV penetration has touched 40 per cent.

 

Around 90-95 per cent of charging happens at home, offices, and private locations. Bolt.Earth focused first on 2-wheeler (2W) and 3W charging before scaling to 4W fast charging

 

It recently launched the Blaze DC Fast Charger, built for two- & three-wheelers, that works across OEMs and protocols (Type 6, Type 7 charging).

 

With a fast charging speed of 1 per cent per minute, a vehicle can get 40-50 km in 15-minutes. Fleet operators like Swiggy, Zepto, Rapido would be the target segments. Bharadwaj says that Blaze DC chargers would constitute around 40 per cent of the upcoming network.

 

“We’ve raised about $30 million so far, including our most recent $5 million round in January. Our lead investor is Union Square Ventures (USV) from New York, one of the world’s best-performing VC funds and early backers of Twitter, MongoDB, Firebase, Coinbase and Behance. We’re also their only investment across Asia. We’re backed by Version One Ventures from Canada, Prime Venture Partners, ITI Growth, and Chetan Maini - the father of India’s EV movement - through his fund, Virya Mobility. We’re fortunate to have a very strong bench of global and Indian investors,” Bharadwaj said.