IIT Madras-incubated Smart EV Charger Start-up Plugzmart raises Rs. 3.63 Crore in Funding
CHENNAI : IIT Madras-incubated Smart EV Charger start-up Plugzmart has raised Rs. 3.63 Crore in seed funding, led by early-stage VC BlueHill Capital and followed by investors such as Mr. Meera Reddy of SKCL, Mr. Kartik Meyyappan, Mr. L. Ramkumar, Mr. Sivadas Raghava and Mrs. Shailaja Reddy.
The company plans to use the funds for R&D and scaling up the team besides ramping up production to meet the large order pipeline already in hand. The start-up is targeting to deliver at least one million indigenously-designed and manufactured chargers in the next three years.
Plugzmart is an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) of Electric Vehicle Chargers and SAAS provider of Electric Charging infrastructure. Incubated at IIT Madras in 2019, Plugzmart has built its own IOT-enabled smart EV charging management system to integrate and communicate efficiently with chargers. Their portfolio of nine products includes chargers for 2, 3 and 4-wheelers.
Founded by Mr Vivek Samaynathan and Mr. Ragavendra Ravichandran, Plugzmart has portfolio of nine products across AC/DC and different power ranges including AC chargers (7.4kW – 22kW) and DC chargers (30kW – 120kW).
Elaborating on how the fundraising will boost their operations, Mr Ragavendra Ravichandran, Co-founder, Plugzmart, said, “A majority of EV chargers in India today are being imported and are of low quality. As EV adoption increases both on the consumer and commercial sides, the requirement for chargers from manufacturers of 2, 3 & 4 Wheelers and Charge Point Operators is going to scale rapidly and with this round of funding we are well positioned to fulfil this demand.”
The unique aspects of smart chargers developed by Plugzmart include a software-based EV charging system designed to meet the growing demand in the charging infrastructure in India.
An algorithm will optimally schedule charging in order to maximize the usage of available grid resource for charging EVs and thereby maximizing the number of EVs that can be connected to the grid while enhancing grid stability. This homegrown smart controller can be used in third party chargers as well. Because of this flexibility, the system can grow and change as technology change.
Elaborating on the reasons for investing in Plugzmart, Mr. Manu Iyer, Partner at Bluehill Capital, said, “As the EV segment in India takes off, we are excited to partner with and invest in Plugzmart, and add to our EV portfolio. There is a gaping hole in the Made-in-India, safe and quality EV charger hardware+software market which we believe can be addressed by Plugzmart. Plugzmart is an exciting startup in the greenfield industry and we are glad to back the team to achieve new heights.”
The Key Factors that differentiate Plugzmart’s from current technologies include
Ø Indigenously designed and manufactured EV charge controller
Ø Connected to Cloud for 24 X 7 and it can accessed through mobile application
Ø Collect data from vehicle to analyze the performance of the battery and its charging cycle
Ø Collect data about the energy demand and effectively balance the load
Ø Controller can be compatible with any type of charger