How ElectricPe Is Building A One-stop Solution For EV Two-wheelers

Avinash Sharma, co-founder and CEO, ElectricPe
Image: Madhu Kapparath

 
What is more electrifying: Identifying a problem or cracking a solution? Avinash Sharma reckons it’s a mix of both. “The magical spark, though, is not instant. It takes years,” says the electronics grad who mimicked the academic template of most engineers by arming himself with an MBA degree and started his professional innings with Godrej. A heady 11-month stint with the door-to-door sales team of the consumer durables major resulted in rich consumer insights. “I was part of the pilot project,” he recounts. Hawking fridges, ACs, and washing machines taught him the art of direct selling. Subsequent jobs at Asian Paints, Hindustan Times, Ola and Sun Mobility ushered in a deeper understanding of user behaviour, an incisive peek into perception, and exposed him to varied nuances around the problems faced by consumers. Sharma learnt ‘how’ to sell.

The biggest learning, though, was ‘what’ to sell. “Sell what they would like to buy and not what you want them to buy,” reckons Sharma. In 2021, after over 11 years of his corporate tenure, when he rolled out ElectricPe along with Raghav Rohila, he was confident of two things. First, he was convinced he had identified the problem. During his six-year stint at Ola and Sun Mobility, the aspiring entrepreneur hit a jackpot in terms of identifying a gaping hole in the fast-emerging EV (electric vehicles) ecosystem. “I noticed four gaps,” he recounts. Despite a flourishing supply side of a sea of players offering a wide-range of EV two-wheelers, a seamless and ubiquitous charging infrastructure was glaringly missing. “There was no clear answer to ‘where’ to charge and ‘how’ to charge,” says Sharma.

Another jarring issue was the problem of abundance. There were dozens of EV brands and there were equally large different sets of users. “But the consumers had a problem of choice,” avers Sharma, alluding to a diverse set of users who had an equally divergent deck of needs to buy an EV vehicle. A homemaker had her own set of requirements, an employee had identified her needs, and a student had chalked out her expectations from an EV. “The problem was that there was nobody to help them make an informed choice,” says Sharma. “The question that begged a reply was ‘which’ one to buy,” he adds.

The third big problem regarding EVs had turned out to be the consumers’ bugbear: Missing after-sales and repair ecosystem. How to fix if the vehicle breaks down? And the last issue was around batteries. After a few years, they needed to be replaced. Though a consumer had convincingly bought the ‘petrol versus EV’ argument, the prohibitive cost of battery seemed to be a deterrent in EV adoption. Sharma had done his homework and was ready with an electrifying solution. Consumers wanted access, ease, comfort and convenience. What if all the four problems can be provided by one player? What if one player could take care of all the EV needs? “This was our hypothesis for starting ElectricPe,” says Sharma.

A full-stack platform or super app for all EV solutions, ElectricPe offers charging points, brings together multi-brand two-wheelers under one roof, provides financing options for buying vehicles, takes care of after-sales and servicing, gives subscription plans for batteries, and offers battery replacement options. “You can think of us like the Zomato of EV two-wheelers. Whatever your EV needs are, we have a solution,” says Sharma.

Also read: TVS, Bajaj, Hero are growing in the EV market. Can Ola keep its throne?

A little over three years into the venture, ElectricPe has grown at an electrifying clip. It has raised close to $10 million in funding; counts Green Frontier Capital, Blume Ventures and Micelio Fund among its institutional VC backers; boasts of high-profile founders such as Anupam Mittal of Shaadi.com, Ashish Goel of Urban Ladder, and Mukul Rustagi of Classplus among its angel investors; claims to have sold over 6,000 EV two-wheelers; and has rolled out eight multi-brand EV retail outlets in Karnataka. “We are planning to open 10 more across Tier II and III cities,” says Sharma, claiming that the EV startup is clocking a revenue run-rate of ₹100 crore. “We will be profitable in a year.”

The backers are delighted with the startup’s progress. “When we invested in ElectricPe in 2021, the electric mobility revolution was well underway,” says Arpit Agarwal, partner at Blume Ventures. However, a few crucial enabling pieces—such as ubiquitous charging infrastructure, multi-brand retail of EVs, and affordability solutions like BaaS (battery as a service)—were missing. “We aligned deeply with Avinash and Raghav’s vision of powering the adoption of electric mobility,” he says, adding that the founding team has executed well on the original business plan, creating possibly India’s largest charging network with over 90 percent uptime. Over the last few months, the MBO (multi-brand outlet) business has scaled, creating trust among thousands of customers across Bengaluru and nearby regions.

ElectricPe is well-poised to make the most of the electric revolution. “The big opportunity is the electrification of consumer transportation, starting with two-wheelers,” underlines Agarwal. And if one can build, he adds, annuity revenue lines such as charging and financing, the opportunity size explodes. The biggest challenge for the upstarts, he points out, is executing well in the face of growing competition. “The market is now bigger and more complicated. Though there is regulatory clarity, many players and business models are still evolving,” he adds. ElectricPe, the venture capitalist reckons, has cracked the problem of winning the consumer trust. “But they need to keep the trust intact,” he says. “It’s going to be challenging,” he adds.

Sharma has identified a different challenge. ElectricPe, he points out, is involved in solving four problems: Charging, selling EVs, servicing and offering solutions for batteries. “These are all four businesses, but are done by one startup: ElectricPe,” he says. “This is not going to be easy,” he adds, pointing out one more red flag. “One can’t be hyper-aggressive in expansion.”