Indian EV Start-Up Strom Motors Receives Angel Funding
The company has been selected as one of the top 10 start-ups to transform India by department of science and technology and IIM Calcutta under SmartFifty program
September 28, 2018
Mumbai-based mobility startup Strom Motors (E14 Technologies Pvt Ltd) has secured angel funding from Indian Angel network (IAN), the horizontal seed stage funding platform.
Strom Motors will utilize part of the funding to set up an assembly plant in Mumbai for Strom-R3 which is a fully air-conditioned, two-seater reverse trike, especially designed for highly populated cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. That apart, the fund will also be used for enhancing product sale, hasten physical expansion, and surge consumer base.
After receiving the fund, Pratik Gupta, founder and chief executive officer of the firm told Mercom, “We have been in talks with IAN for over three months and we have finally received the funding. Strom Motors will also be utilizing the funds to set up its assembly plant in Mumbai for Strom-R3 which has already received over 100 pre-orders from the Maharashtra region.”
Founded in the year 2011, Strom Motors aims to redefine urban mobility and re-invent India’s personal transportation through its smart electric car. Earlier this year, the company unveiled Strom-R3, an all-electric urban mobility solution which addresses the pain points of the country’s mobility architecture and brings a new approach to safety, sustainability and driving experience.
Strom Motors has recently tied up with what3words, a geo-addressing company based out of the U.K., to optimize GPS mapping and bring accuracy to navigation in a complex road infrastructure such as India.
IAN, the funding source, is India’s first and world’s largest business angel network with close to 500 members across the world, comprising the who’s who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs.
In India, electric vehicles are projected to undergo explosive growth in the coming years with the government’s electric vehicle friendly policies. Recently, the central government approved a subsidy corpus of ₹55 billion (~$0.78 billion) to be disbursed under the second phase of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles (FAME) program. The FAME II program will be in force for five years.
The government had launched the FAME program with an initial outlay of ₹750 million (~$11.56 million) to provide a major push for the early adoption and creation of a market for both hybrids and EVs. The FAME Program covers all vehicles ― two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four wheelers and buses. The incentives to be provided are based on the type and make of any given vehicle.
In an exhaustive report, Mercom recently analyzed the EV hotspots in the country that are poised to lead India’s EV revolution.