Hyderabad-based electric vehicle manufacturer and retrofit kit solution company e-Trio has raised $3 million (Rs 22 crore) in Series A round from HNI investors based out of Singapore. The group of investors is led by serial investor, Janardhan Rao, founder of Triumph Global Group, a Singapore head-quartered international commodity trading house with a consolidated revenue of over $900 million (Rs 6,661 crore).

It maybe recollected that in August 2020, Autocar Professional had revealed eTrio’s gameplan and the launch of its first retrofitted e-LCV. The company says the new investment will enable the company’s foray into new electric vehicles in three-wheeler and bicycle product lines. The company aims to focus on customer acquisition across both B2B and consumer segments.

Touro, Etrio`s three-wheeler brand is scheduled for market launch in October 2020, which will come in two variants – Touro Mini and Max – across both cargo and passenger segments. The cargo variant is currently undergoing pilots with leading e-commerce and logistics players and has already been booked for around 500 units. Stepping into the electric bicycle segment, Etrio will also introduce the Ashva and iSwitch e-bike lines in the coming months. The company plans to scale up aggressively by deploying its electric range of vehicles through a mix of sales and leasing options.

The EV maker says the fund will be utilised to fuel its go-to-market strategy, set-up sales and service networks across select cities, and hire key personnel over the next 6-9 months.

Commenting on this, Deepak MV, co-founder and CEO, Etrio said, “With over a year of extensive work, we finally make our big transition from retrofitment to creation of new electric vehicles. We will continue to evolve as an EV OEM bringing reliable products based on superior vehicle architecture, efficient system integration, robust design, and connected systems to drive mass adoption of EVs in India. With this funding, we will strengthen our product portfolio to target B2B logistics platforms for growth with diverse product offerings and more geographical presence. We aim to enter the highly-dense three-wheeler EV market starting with the cargo segment aimed at e-commerce logistics space and then subsequently set up its channel network for driving both passenger and cargo 3-wheeler sales across major states in the North and South India. Our focus now is to deliver customer delight through the introduction of new product variants, superior after-sales service, data-driven approach and customer-centric culture.”

At present, the company has dedicated vehicle manufacturing and assembly set-up spread across 20,000sqft at Hyderabad and is in the process of achieving 100 percent localisation of the supply chain by end FY2021.

This series A investment constitutes the first part of fundraising for the company and the company plans to raise an additional round in early FY2022 towards investments for R&D for new product development, in-house manufacturing of key electric components and production capacity ramp-up.

Also read: e-Trio targets B2B platforms for growth, launches new e-3W

e-Trio launches first certified retrofitted electric LCV at Rs 775,000