Chara, a Bangalore-based deep-tech start-up, has raised a pre-series A round of $4.75 million led by Exfinity Venture Partners, a Bengaluru-based VC firm known for its B2B focus and deep-tech expertise. This round also had participation from Vietnam-based Big Capital, the venture arm of Bitexco and Log9 Materials. Kalaari Capital and ciie.co who are existing investors participated in this round as well.

Chara was founded in November 2019 by Bhaktha Keshavachar, Ravi Prasad Sharma, and Mahalingam Koushik. The founders are serial entrepreneurs, veteran product experts, and motor technologists with decades of experience developing cutting-edge products and technologies. The Chara story began with an initial grant from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

So far, Chara has built motors for 2-Wheeler (hub and mid-mount), 3 and 4-Wheeler LCVs and HVAC use cases. The motors and its matching controllers are being field tested and are expected to go into production later this year. Chara also has several projects lined up to build motors and controllers for heavy commercial vehicles. Chara’s current motor range starts from fractional kW to 10’s of kW with voltage ranges from 48V to 400V. Higher voltages and powers will be built in the near future. Chara has filed patents in Motor design, controller design and Control algorithms for these Motor technologies.

Commenting on the deal, Bhaktha Keshavachar, Founder and CEO, Chara Technologies, said “At Chara, we pride ourselves in being disruptors and 2023 is going to be a year of realising our electric dreams. We’re working towards turning the current motor tech on its head, doing away with inefficient and rare-earth-dependent practices.We are building rare-earth-free, hyper-efficient, cost-effective, intelligent motors and controllers for EV,

Speaking on the fund raised, Chinnu Senthilkumar, Managing Partner at Exfinity said “Exfinity strongly believes that the EV story for South Asia and similar markets has to be contextualized and not replicated from the US and European markets. After our earlier investment in Log 9 Materials, Chara is part of our continued belief in this thesis. Chara Motors is also a great example for Atmanirbhar Bharat as it delinks the permanent magnet supply chain dependency from China and other countries.”

Speaking on the investment, Preetinder Singh Panjrath, CFO – BIG Capital, said “ As part of our commitment to environmentally friendly solution for land and aerospace markets we were especially attracted to Chara motors with the focus on rare earth free electric motors that are safer for the planet, more cost efficient and offers better efficiency compared to the legacy solutions.”

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