EV Infrastructure Company RACEnergy Raises $1.3 Million Funding In A Seed+ Round

Hyderabad-based e-mobility start-up, RACEnergy, has announced raising $1.3 million or Rs. 9.67 crore in funding in a Seed+ round led by Micelio Fund and growX ventures. The company, which primarily manufactures battery swapping stations and swappable batteries, says that the funds will be used to enhance R&D, scale the company's swapping technology and infrastructure, and fulfil the pre-orders received in Hyderabad and surrounding Tier-II cities. RACEnergy has also received investments from Huddle, Prophetic Ventures, BITSian Angels, and other angel investment firms.

Commenting on the latest round of investment, Arun Sreyas, CEO and Co-Founder, RACEnergy said, "Over the last three years, we have focused our efforts to develop the most advanced swapping technology, engineered for Indian vehicles and roads. As a tech-first company, the funds will enable us to make more ergonomic and customised batteries, further our connected cloud system, deploy the first-of-its-kind cooling system inside a battery pack, and accelerate our production process. This will help scale our pilot programs to meet the growing EV demand."

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RACEnergy also provides retrofit kits that convert existing ICE auto-rickshaws into electric

Earlier, in 2020, the company had raised $500,000 or Rs. 3.72 crore during a seed round from growX ventures, early-stage investor Prophetic Ventures and other angels as part of Huddle, India's first EV accelerator. Sheetal Bahl, Partner, growX ventures said, "We are happy to back RACE, yet again, on its path to becoming the pre-eminent battery swapping infrastructure creator in India. The company has made solid progress over the last couple of years and has remained sharply focused on developing a proprietary technology backbone. This will now allow RACE to build a superior and differentiated swapping network in the next couple of years." On the other hand, Shreyas Shibulal, Founder & Director, Micelio Fund said, "RACE has developed one of the most advanced, sophisticated technology to enable swapping of batteries for electric vehicles. Our team at Micelio are impressed by the founders' vision, knowledge, and execution capabilities."

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RACE Energy provides an integrated solution by taking the cost of the battery out of the vehicle and offering energy as a service through a network of swapping stations. Drivers can simply swap their discharged batteries with charged ones within 2 minutes, enabling them to operate on-road for longer durations. To onboard vehicles to its platform, the company provides retrofit kits that convert existing ICE auto-rickshaws into electric, making it economic and scalable. The company successfully showcased its first prototype in 2019 and aims to set up India's largest network of battery swapping infrastructure across various cities, starting with Hyderabad.