EverSource Capital buys majority stake in EV start-up Lithium for over $50 mn

EverSource Capital, manager of India’s largest climate impact fund, has announced that it is acquiring a majority stake in EV start-up Lithium Urban Technologies Pvt Ltd. Lithium claims to be the largest operator of electric cars in India, providing services to marquee clients since 2015, with a presence in 15+ cities. The companies claim that this is the biggest deal in the EV passenger mobility segment. Sources privy to the development told Business Today that the deal could be valued at over $50 million.

Both the companies, however, have officially declined to comment on the deal valuation when BT reached out to them.
 

This deal comes at a time when the government has announced a Rs 18,100 crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to incentivise the manufacturing capabilities for stakeholders in the EV industry, thus propelling the push towards greater EV adoption.

Founded in 2014, with an order book of over 2,000 vehicles and a network of 600+ charging stations powered by a proprietary technology stack, Lithium has delivered more than 180 million electric miles over the last 7 years.

 
The company also recently expanded its offerings to corporate clients providing large-form factor buses and freight management solutions using a 100 per cent electric fleet. Lithium’s tech stack comprises of fleet management, connected vehicles with charging infrastructure and demand management platform, enabling its fleet of electric vehicles to deliver 2x productivity, reduce carbon footprint by up to 100 per cent and bring down the transportation costs by up to 40 per cent.

“We are delighted to welcome Lithium into the EverSource ecosystem as it strengthens our mission of building climate-positive businesses. With Lithium’s unique, differentiated and competitive e-mobility offering, we aim to build it into a rapidly scalable, world-class business generating superior financial returns,” Dhanpal Jhaveri, CEO, EverSource Capital, said.

Lithium will be EverSource’s core platform for providing B2B e-mobility solutions across passenger and freight segments. The freshly infused funds will be primarily invested in enhancing the technology platform, expansion of vehicle fleet, development of new vehicle platforms and rapid expansion of its pan-India charging infrastructure, as per an official handout.

“We also foresee a huge synergistic benefit with our other platform, ‘GreenCell Mobility’, regarding co-development of new application-specific electric vehicles, rolling out and cross utilisation of charging and energy infrastructure, sharing of best practices and learnings between two leading electric fleet owner-operators in India.”, Dhanpal added.

 “As a company, we believe that Lithium has found the perfect partner in EverSource given their domain expertise in electric mobility and strong track record of partnering with founders of new-age businesses. With the fresh infusion, we are looking to serve our clients as a one-stop shop for their people and freight mobility requirements across the country and subsequently in global markets. Our aim is to help reduce transportation costs and operational complexity while raising the bar on transparency and employee safety along with a drastic reduction in their carbon footprint,” Sanjay Krishnan, founder and CEO, Lithium, said.