Indian startup Zypp Electric plans to leverage fresh investment from Japanese oil and energy conglomerate ENEOS to bring its electric vehicle rental service to Southeast Asia early next 12 months, TechCrunch has learned exclusively.
The company’s goal is to be present in 15 markets inside the next two years. Of these 15 markets, Zypp Electric plans to launch a pilot in at least one Southeast Asian market early next 12 months, co-founder and CEO Akash Gupta told TechCrunch in an interview. The latest $15 million financing, led by ENEOS, is a part of Zypp Electric’s Series C round, which Gupta said will likely be between $35 million and $40 million and will close inside six to eight weeks.
Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines are potential markets for Zypp Electric. All these countries focus on two-wheelers and handle multiple deliveries, the co-founder said, adding that Indonesia will likely be the first market where we’ll start.
“We think about it and discuss it in different ways [Southeast Asia launch plan] with several players. We will clarify this in the next two to three quarters,” Gupta said.
He also mentioned that the startup is in preliminary talks about entering the Middle East as a part of its global expansion. However, the exact details of the launch in the Middle East have not been revealed.
The Gurugram-based startup, which currently operates in major Indian cities Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad, offers an EV platform as a service that targets e-commerce firms and gig employees. The platform includes an app and accompanying software that gives data and analytics for fleet and delivery management, in addition to a fleet of electrical two-wheelers. Gig economy employees, who can rent e-bikes on a day by day, weekly or monthly subscription, generate roughly 28% of Zypp’s revenue. The remainder of its business serves courier, e-commerce, food and grocery delivery and ride-sharing firms comparable to Amazon, BigBasket, DHL, Uber, Swiggy, Zepto and Zomato. The startup’s platform is used to make 5 million deliveries per thirty days.
Zypp Electric is working to expand its operations – geographically and in terms of volume. The company had earlier planned to expand its fleet to 200,000 electric two-wheelers and enter 30 Indian cities by the end of 2025. Gupta, nonetheless, told TechCrunch that the startup decided to go deeper into markets moderately than launch it in latest cities with a minimal presence.
The startup has also began offering electric three-wheelers in Delhi and Bengaluru and plans to expand to Mumbai soon. The three-wheeler fleet already generates 10% of the startup’s total revenue, said the co-founder.
Currently, Zypp has around 15,000 electric two-wheelers in Delhi, 5,000 in Bengaluru, 1,000 in Mumbai and 500 in Hyderabad.
“The idea is to go deeper into these markets and at the same time launch a new market every quarter,” Gupta said. Next 12 months, the company plans to expand its fleet of twenty-two,000 electric two-wheelers to 50,000. According to Gupta, the company desires to further expand its fleet of 200,000 electric two-wheelers in the next two-and-a-half years.
Last February, Zypp Electric raised $25 million in a Series B round led by Taiwanese battery substitute company Gogoro. It also counts Goodyear Ventures, Google for Startups and Shell E4 as key sponsors.
Gupta said Zypp Electric is already operationally profitable and on track to attain positive EBITA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) inside six to eight months and post-tax profit inside 12 to 14 months.