Natco Pharma chairman and managing director V.C. Nannapaneni, in his personal capacity, has invested an undisclosed amount in electric vehicle start-up Pure EV.
For the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad-incubated startup, the funding is coming at an opportune moment as it plans to expand its manufacturing capacity and research and development initiatives.
“It is working on the development of high-speed and long-range scooter and motorcycle, which are scheduled for commercial launch in October 2019 and early 2020 respectively,” an announcement on the investment by Mr. Nannapaneni, whom the statement described as Hyderabad-based pharmaceuticals visionary.
Sources said the Natco Pharma founder has made the investment in his personal capacity. The start-up has been valued at $35 million.
Mr. Nannapaneni said “the vision and the zeal of Pure EV founders has been noteworthy and aligned with our vision to promote young entrepreneurs in areas with the highest level of societal impact and value addition to local economy.”
Pure EV has also been developing a prototype of HVDC electric truck/bus lithium battery modules and intends to showcase them in 2020 for potential collaborations. It is now looking to ramp up its EV manufacturing capacity to 2,000 units per month by October 2019.
The company was founded in 2016 by Nishanth Dongari, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT-H, and is led by Rohit Vadera, an alumnus of IIT Bombay.
Pure EV targets to bring 10,000 EVs on road
Pure EV, which has launched four two-wheeler models, aims to deploy over 10,000 EVs on road during 2019-20. It has an 18,000-sq ft state-of-the-art facility, co-located with IIT-H for R&D and large scale production of EVs and electric batteries.
Mr. Vadera said the funding will be primarily utilised for expanding the manufacturing capacity by installation of an automated assembly line and strengthening of the company operations.
“Being a battery manufacturing company, we can offer not only the best possible service conditions on lithium ion batteries but also can explore battery swapping solutions being jointly offered with our partners for faster adoption of EVs,” he said.
The company had also recently launched its CMVR-exempted electric vehicles commercially in the market and is actively working on building strategic partnerships for vehicle financing and branding collaboration, the release said.
Mr.Dongari said thermal management of HVDC Batteries, active balancing BMS and predicting the life cycle of batteries through accurate algorithms are the key focus areas, which Pure EV is pursuing by collaborating with IIT-H.
Founding director of IIT-H U.B. Desai said “Pure EV is a true testimony of how IIT-H Hyderabad is translating academic activities into mass scale commercial products through the support of the incubation centre.
