Electric vehicle company Simple Energy is in discussions to raise $15–20 million in its first institutional round, which is likely to include corporate venture capital firms and sovereign funds.

According to one of the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Bengaluru-based company may command a valuation above soonicorn. A soonicorn is a privately held startup with the potential to become a unicorn and a valuation that is typically higher than $500 million but lower than the unicorn valuation of $1 billion.

The business recently raised over $20 million in a bridge funding round in which high-net-worth individuals including Purple Moon Ventures, Ashwin Hinduja of the Gokaldas Group, Sanjay and Sandeep Wadhawa of Nash Industries, and Arokiaswamy Velumani, founder of Thyrocare Technologies, participated. Additionally, Sattva Group and Athiyas Group have invested in it. It has raised $42 million so far.

The money will be used by Simple Energy to increase production of its main product, the Simple One electric scooter, and to begin customer deliveries. Due to the company's decision to include more safety features, deliveries of the two-wheeler have been delayed by more than a year. The business recently inaugurated its plant in Shoolagiri, Tamil Nadu, which cost Rs 100 crore to build. "We have more than 100,000 reservations. We intend to roll out these 100,000 scooters in the next 12 months,” co-founder and chief executive Suhas Rajkumar said in an interview. A "conservative" sales target of $150 million has been established by the corporation, according to him, for FY24.

In India's rapidly expanding market for electric two-wheelers, Simple Energy competes with companies like Ola Electric, Ather Energy, Okinawa Autotech, TVS, and Hero Electric, among others. The company was founded in 2018 by Rajkumar and Shreshth Mishra. The business asserts that all internal research and development for the scooter's battery and motor, as well as its surface and chassis designs, has been done. It primarily attempts to provide a greater range per charge to reduce consumers' range concern.

Additionally to the Simple One electric scooter, the business is working on other items. Due to the rising EV demand and the need to cut carbon emissions, investments in Indian EV startups have increased in recent years. The use of EVs has been encouraged by the federal and state governments, which has sped up the industry's expansion.

EV startups that are pioneering new technology and business models have received millions of dollars from VC and PE firms as well as established automakers. These startups are developing a range of products, including infrastructure for charging and batteries. For instance, Gogoro, a producer of battery swapping systems, led a $25 million (about Rs 206 crore) Series B fundraising round for EV-as-a-service company Zypp Electric earlier this month. Also last month, Green Frontier Capital, Blume Ventures, and Micelio Fund gave the EV infrastructure startup ElectricPe $5 million.