Kinetic Green in final leg of Rs 250 crore fund raise, eyes 1 lakh EV sales in FY25 and Rs 1000 crore turnover, says Sulajja Firodia Motwani

Kinetic Green, the electric vehicle arm of the Kinetic Group is in the final leg of raising of about $30 million or Rs 250 crore from external investors to fund its expansion plan.

The company is likely to close the fundraise within the next quarter, said the Founder and CEO of the company, Sulajja Firodia Motwani to Autocar Professional.

The company which generated about Rs 300 crore of business by selling a modest number of electric two and three-wheelers in 2023, aims to cross Rs 1000 crore in turnover in FY25.

Motwani, said that the company has been able to develop a portfolio of electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers including Golf carts through internal accrual, but as the EV arm aims to scale up the business, the company would need funds to ramp up its business. 

"We are going aggressively build our two-wheeler portfolio. We unveiled our Zulu scooter today, and in early 2024, you will see the much awaited E-Luna and then we are working on the high performance scooter, which will help us offer a portfolio of scooters in the zero emission space," Motwani added. 

While the company had explored an alliance with China's largest electric two-wheeler maker AIMA, it decided to go on its own, claims Firodia, due to Covid challenges, and over the last few years, the company has developed multiple platforms with different speeds to cater to a larger market. The E-Luna will be available for both personal buyers and gig economy workers.

The company will offer multiple variants from 1.5 KW to 3 KW batteries - across low speed, city speed, and high speed to meet varying needs.

"With all the models in the marketplace, we are targeting Rs 1000 crore in turnover in FY25 and five years from now we want to sell 1 million EVs and cross the  Rs 10,000 crore mark," said Motwani. 

Unlike the cash burn models of some of the startups, Motwani says Kinetic Green has always remained EBIDTA positive or in green - there may have been a marginal drop due to investments, but largely the company has built a strong foundation to do business sustainably.

To support this business, Motwani said, over the last few years, the company has been focussed on building right talent to steer the EV business. The company has hired a dedicated Business unit head for two wheelers, three wheelers and the Golf Cart business and the company continues to hire the right people to grow  business.

Apart from hiring the right people, it has been focussed on building its own R&D - and aims to have a strong backward integration.

Motwani says there is a strong backward integration and it has sourced key parts from group companies – for the Zulu, E-luna, the cluster, converter, and all electrical parts are made from Kinetic Communication.  

For E-Luna, the motor is made by Kinetic Electric Motor Company, and the gearbox and the chassis aggregates are made by Kinetic Engineering.

The chassis aggregates, transmission, motor, controller, cluster, and converter are all integrated within the group with an emphasis on Make in India. “We are also exploring to making the battery in-house,” Motwani stated. 

To cater to the wider customer base - Kinetic has set up a network of 500 dealers, 300 dealers for two-wheelers and 200 dealers for three-wheelers.

The company has so far sold about 50,000 electric two-wheelers and cumulatively about 1 lakh EVs generating revenues of over Rs 1000 crore since its first entry.