Indian electrical mobility startup Magenta Mobility has closed a $22 million Collection A1 spherical, backed by $11 million every from Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure and BP Ventures. Magenta will use the all-equity funding to spice up its present logistics and last-mile supply fleet operations.
The Navi Mumbai-headquartered startup has a fleet of 800 three-wheeled electrical cargo vans with which it delivers items in seven cities throughout the nation — particularly Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Mysuru, Hyderabad, Gurugram and Noida. Magenta goals to make use of its newest capital infusion to develop into eight new cities within the subsequent two years, and develop its fleet to 4,000 three- and four-wheeled EVs within the subsequent yr. The corporate companions with native and world OEMs to produce its fleet, akin to Tata Motors, Mahindra, Piago, Omega Seiki and Euler, amongst others.
Magenta at present has about 35 clients, together with e-commerce and grocery supply firms akin to Flipkart, BigBasket, Udaan and Amazon. The startup has additionally began dealing with deliveries of meals, grains and even water and mattresses as business EV adoption beneficial properties adoption within the nation. Magenta says it has performed practically 70 million deliveries overlaying 6.4 million kilometers, of which 60% have come from e-commerce.
Maxson Lewis, Magenta’s founder and managing director, wouldn’t share particulars in regards to the firm’s revenues, however mentioned the startup has seen 5x progress yearly. The agency has a workforce of 200 members that sit in its workplaces throughout 4 cities.
The funding from BP Ventures is greater than only a monetary partnership. BP brings to the desk entry to its community of strategic companions, in addition to a wealth of data collected from its 14 earlier mobility investments and $27 million invested in India so far. Magenta Mobility is BP Ventures’ second funding within the nation after investing in EV ride-hailing startup BluSmart final yr.
The partnership additionally offers Magenta entry to Jio-BP, the three way partnership between BP and India’s Reliance Industries, because the unique EV charging associate for the startup’s fleet. Jio-BP has quite a lot of massive EV fleet charging hubs in addition to lots of of public cost factors in varied cities and main highways throughout the nation. The startup may also be capable of leverage BP Ventures’ community to develop its strategic partnerships.
First mover benefit
India has turn out to be a fast-growing EV market, with 2.64 million EVs registered as of March 15, per the federal government information produced within the parliament final week. Though the market is basically dominated by electrical two-wheelers, the nation has over 1.39 million electrical three-wheelers. The continuing enlargement of e-commerce within the nation and New Delhi’s purpose to cut back India’s carbon footprint by 33–35% by 2030 beneath 2005 ranges are anticipated to spice up the demand for e-mobility amongst stakeholders.
“The tempo of progress for electrical automobiles in India, particularly in ‘final mile’ supply, is extraordinary and is enjoying a significant position in decarbonizing cities. We’re very proud to make BP’s first venture-led entry into India’s last-mile supply market and our second within the Indian mobility sector,” mentioned Gareth Burns, vice chairman of BP Ventures, in a ready assertion.
Lewis based Magenta Mobility in February 2018 after spending 5 years within the vehicle trade, 15 years within the electrical energy sector and years at multinational corporations together with Bosch and Accenture. The startup initially kicked off its journey to unravel the issue of EV charging area because the market had but to develop an electrical mobility ecosystem.
The early transfer into the EV area helped Magenta Mobility achieve some consideration and appeal to seed funding from Indian authorities’s Hindustan Petroleum Company (HPCL) after getting observed by the Prime Minister’s workplace in 2018, Lewis, founder and managing director at Magneta Mobility, recalled in an interview.
Nonetheless, because the ecosystem has come into play with the addition of scores of latest gamers becoming a member of the market, Magenta Mobility has moved past merely providing its charging infrastructure and began dealing with last-mile mobility utilizing an all-EV fleet.
“We had been all the time conscious that we needed to deal with the last-mile mobility, whereby we constructed up this charging infrastructure as a captive service. Successfully, our charging infrastructure is getting utilized by our last-mile mobility,” Lewis mentioned.
In its plan to construct an electrical last-mile supply ecosystem, Magenta has raised a complete of $33.7 million, with LetsVenture, JITO Angel Community and Indian-American philanthropist Dr. Kiran Patel amongst its traders.