BluSmart raises $42 million

Indian electric vehicle (EV) ride-hailing platform BluSmart Mobility has raised $42 million (around ₹342 crore) in a bridge round led by existing investors BP Ventures and Survam Partners. The round also saw the participation of BluSmart’s leadership team.

The company has raised $37 million in equity and $5 million in venture debt in this round, with nearly 50% of the funding being subscribed by BluSmart’s founders and leadership team.

BluSmart has so far raised a total of $109 million across seed and Series A2 rounds, including $85 million in equity in Series A. It has also secured $150 million in EV asset leasing, supported by development financial institutions such as Power Finance Corp. and the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency, among others.

The fresh capital will be used to expand BluSmart’s operations. The firm currently operates an all-electric ride-hailing fleet of 3,500 vehicles in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, with plans to deploy 10,000 EVs in FY24.

Founded in 2019 by Anmol Jaggi and Punit Goyal, BluSmart provides an EV fleet, that operate on clean energy to promote sustainability and reduce carbon emission. The platform competes with ride-hailing giants such as Uber Technologies and domestic rival Ola.

The firm claimed to have triple its monthly revenue in the past three quarters and plans to boost revenue further by going deeper into top-tier cities.

The electrification of public transportation is imminent, but the path to electrification has its own challenges. said Jaggi. “BluSmart addresses the challenges via a full-stack approach, which includes a born-electric tech stack, and complete control over the EV charging infrastructure (installation, execution, as well as utilisation), and identifying prime locations to build large-scale EV charging infrastructure, while optimizing the use and maintenance of the EV fleet at scale,” he added.

BluSmart recently secured $77 million in asset financing from the Power Finance Corp. to fund 5,000 electric vehicles for its platform. It plans to use it to finance 1,000 cargo three-wheelers and lease them to last-mile delivery partners.

In May 2022, it had raised $25 million during its extended Series A round, led by BP Ventures and Green Frontier Capital, Stride Ventures, Alteria Capital, BlackSoil, and UCIC also participated in the round. The company closed its Series A round at $50.7 million.