EV Financing platform Ohm Mobility raises Rs 3 crore in pre-seed funding led by Antler India

Ohm Mobility, a Bengaluru-based end-to-end EV financing platform, has raised Rs 3 crore in pre-seed funding led by Antler India. The round also saw participation from Blume Founders Fund and other angels like Sagar Gubbi (Ecoforge), Anshuman Bapna (Terra.do), Mathew Chako (Spice Route Legal), and Karishma Menon. 

The funds will be used to build and scale a first-of-its-kind technology platform in the EV Financing sector. Ohm’s technology platform will act as a critical bridge, connecting EV players with a host of financial institutions. Ohm is also backed by Catalyst Fund, a FinTech and Climate Finance accelerator, and angel investors like Kunal Shah. 

Ohm is enabling access to institutional capital for electric vehicle (EV) players in India while helping lenders to discover, verify and deploy capital to EV companies. The technology platform which went live this April 2023, is built to onboard any business in the EV market that is looking to raise capital from financial institutions. This could be OEMs, fleet operators, logistics providers, battery companies or any other EV company. While on the other side, a host of financing institutions (banks, NBFCs, leasing companies, etc.) can discover, verify and disburse capital to EV companies/operators. Ohm’s proprietary risk management tool gathers and assesses a host of data including the health of the fleet and various other inputs to improve credit and risk management for lenders.

The current EV Financing market in India is estimated to be around US$2 billion and is expected to grow to US$50 billion a year by 2030. However, data from the Electric Mobility Financiers Association of India shows that in the last year, the number of EV finance players has only grown from 4 to 13. There is a huge white space for disruptive models like Ohm to emerge and enable easy and affordable access to EV Financing in the country.

Talking about the fund raise, Nikhil Nair, Founder and CEO said, “We are confident we have a scalable business model that is solving a core problem around financing for EV businesses. The backing from Antler and Blume Founder Fund is a great testament to our mission and what we are aiming to do at Ohm. The EV industry is growing and evolving very quickly, and access to appropriate capital continues to be a barrier in this sector. We truly believe there is a need for a technology platform to play a role in democratising Financing for EVs in India. We aim to facilitate debt and leasing options to both new-entrants as well existing businesses that are switching to clean mobility. At Ohm, our aim is to become a one-stop shop for all EV financing needs and be an important catalyst in driving India’s clean mobility transition.”

The funding in Ohm marks Antler’s entry into the EV sector in India. Talking about the investment, Vineet Agarwal, Investments Director at Antler said, “As EV penetration in India goes from 3% to 50% in certain categories by 2030, financing will play a crucial role in enabling this. Ohm’s approach of a tech-enabled, asset-light, end-to-end lending marketplace to enable EV buyers (starting with fleet operators, driver-cum-owner or DCOs) to digitally finance their fleets is strongly differentiated. Nikhil and the team are really mission-driven and have built a deep understanding of the EV space. There is currently no other marketplace model of this kind in India and we are thrilled to back Nikhil and the Ohm team in their journey.”

Currently, Ohm’s financing products include Business Loans, Asset backed loans and EV leasing. Its investment partners range from NBFCs, Banks, Leasing companies and Fintechs. Within its first two months of going live, over Rs 5Cr of financing has been facilitated via Ohm’s platform, as per the press release.