The erstwhile India CEO of CARS24, Kunal Mundra, has partnered with a digital investment platform, Grip, to start Electrifi Mobility, a full-stack EV asset management and leasing company. 

Founded in June 2023, Electrifi Mobility aims to offer an end-to-end asset management solution covering asset selection, leasing, maintenance, post-sales support, refurbishment, and redeployment of EV assets. 

The platform has already deployed assets worth INR 10 Cr in the last two months, with more deals worth INR 30 Cr in the pipeline, said Electrifi Mobility and Grip in a joint statement on Thursday (September 21).

Electrifi Mobility has come into being with the realisation that there are major gaps when it comes to the electrification of vehicles in India.

“While there have been significant tailwinds in the form of a supportive regulatory framework and an increasing conviction in the economic viability of commercial EVs, at the ground level there are still several challenges that have reached the stalemate, which is limiting India’s path to electrification,” said Mundra, the cofounder and CEO of Electrifi Mobility.

He pointed at the pain points that while fleet operators have a rising interest in EV deployment, they continue to struggle with assessing the right asset and accessing capital to deploy the same.  

Besides, financial institutions are keen to deploy funds but hesitate due to a general lack of understanding of the residual value of EVs and the absence of a secondary market. 

“Lastly, OEMs have developed multiple offerings, however, given the higher upfront cost, are unable to scale without the right financing partnerships. This is where Electrifi Mobility’s unique offering addresses each market participant’s issues and aims to unlock electrification,” Mundra added.

Coming into the picture here, as per Electrifi Mobility, its in-house engineering teams will help fleet operators choose the right original equipment manufacturers’ (OEM) products for their use case. The company’s leasing arm will then work on creating an operating lease for fleet operators in partnership with multiple capital providers. 

Lastly, the company’s operations arm will provide multiple post-sale value-added services. 

Electrifi Mobility said that due to strong asset capabilities, it will also be able to give the fleet operators the option to return the asset to the company, redeploying them post refurbishment.

With Electrifi Mobility, Grip will leverage its strength in raising funds to meet the increasing capital requirements for supporting the burgeoning EV sector.

“Today, with 16,000 EV assets under operating lease with 25+ fleets, Grip has built a scaled business with nil credit loss. Electrifi’s deep asset management capabilities will help further improve the risk-adjusted reward for our users in future investment options in the EV sector,” said Nikhil Aggarwal, founder and CEO, Grip.

Grip said that it has raised over INR 200 Cr only for EV asset leasing. Its EV asset leasing partnerships include 30 different fleet operators and OEMs such as Euler Motors, Zypp, Tata Motors, BluSmart, Omega Mobility, Charge+Zone, Magenta Mobility, and BatterySmart.

As an asset management and leasing platform, Electrifi Mobility will compete with the likes of Ohm Mobility, Alt Mobility, and Vidyut Tech. 

While the EV financing ecosystem in India continues to face multiple challenges and grow slowly, there has been an increase in the number of financing options available for EVs in the last 2-3 years with more financing startups and NBFCs joining the market.