India's Kazam powers up to roll out EV charging in Southeast Asia

EV charging station startup Kazam plans to expand beyond India, where it already holds a significant share of the market, and into Southeast Asia to gain an early mover’s advantage, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.

The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which has offices in Delhi and Pune and city managers in 4,000 postal codes across India, is set to debut in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

The expansion is part of Kazam’s roadmap, which it set after closing a fresh $8 million Series A3 round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India. The startup also plans to go deeper into the South Asian nation by establishing its footprint in new cities and building fast chargers specifically for electric two and three-wheelers, the segment that currently dominates the overall EV market in the country, Kazam co-founder and CEO Akshay Shekhar said in an interview.

Initially, Kazam plans to enter Southeast Asian markets through its existing customers. The startup already works with Petroliam Nasional Berhad (commonly called Petronas) in India. The energy group owned by the Malaysian government will help Kazam enter its home country. Similarly, the startup is in discussions with vehicle manufacturers to foray into Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia and even African markets including Kenya and Uganda over time, the co-founder told TechCrunch.

The all-equity round also saw participation from Kazam’s existing investors Avaana Capital and Alteria Capital. The startup has raised $13 million to date.

The startup, which employs around 160 people, plans to hire product and development experts to bolster the development of its fast chargers and expand interoperability in the market. It currently does the R&D for its solutions in-house and natively designs PCBs for its chargers. However, the startup outsources hardware manufacturing to limit its capex.

Kazam’s backstory

During the COVID lockdown in 2020, Shekhar and his co-founder Vaibhav Tyagi (CTO) realized the lack of domestic charging infrastructure in India. The duo, who also had a successful YouTube channel reviewing EVs, initially focused on two and three-wheelers. After starting its operations in April 2021, the startup added onboarded fleet companies for its EV charging hardware and software.

“Fleet operators’ biggest problem was ensuring that all their vehicles were charged the next morning. Unexpected power cuts, drivers unable to use chargers properly and concerns about the authenticity of drivers and their vehicles were key challenges for them,” Shekhar told TechCrunch. “So, we solved all this, and Kazam became a quick success.”

Shortly after succeeding with fleet operators, Kazam attracted logistic companies, e-commerce players and automobile manufacturers for its electric charging solutions. The startup developed EV chargers for various vehicles and software to provide telemetrics and insights on available charging points and connectivity through a dashboard as well as payment support.

India’s top seven to eight vehicle manufacturers, two of the largest oil and gas companies and around 30 fleet companies use Kazam’s hardware and software solutions, the executive said. The startup has more than 25,000 charge points, which powers 15 million kilometers per month and 2.5 million charging sessions annually.

The startup, which is inspired by the U.S. EV charging network provider ChargePoint, counts major companies, including e-commerce platforms such as BigBasket and Flipkart, vehicle manufacturers such as Ather Energy, Bajaj, Hero MotoCorp and TVS, and logistics providers LetsTransport and Mahindra Logistics, among others.

While some of these companies specifically use Kazam’s charging management software, a few of them use its charging stations. The startup also white-labels its hardware so that some manufacturers can sell it with their own branding. Kazam claims it has 75% to 80% of India’s entire three-wheeler EV charging market and a 40% share in the electric two-wheeler charging space through both its own-branded and white-labeled chargers.

Kazam worked closely with the Indian government to launch IS-17017 as the country’s charging standard for light electric vehicles. Additionally, it is working with some automobile companies to launch an interoperable fast-charging technology to charge vehicles in 15-20 minutes.

“We want to start digitizing right from the grid. And because we’ve already been working with the vehicle OEMs [original equipment manufacturers], that part has become very easy for us to integrate onto the platform,” said Shekhar.

Last month, Google named Kazam among the Indian EV charging network providers to show two-wheeler charging points in the country through Google Maps. It is an expansion of the feature launched in the U.S. over five years ago, though the Indian version is the first to offer EV charging stations for two-wheelers. Further, the startup joined the open energy network Unified Energy Interface in April along with 19 other companies to offer interoperable EV charging.

Kazam recorded an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $3.2 million in July and projects to reach $4.5-$5 million ARR by the end of the year. It also aims to become EBITDA-positive soon, Shekhar said.