Zypp Electric – Indian electric vehicle startup “landing” in Southeast Asia

Zypp Electric, an Indian startup, has just received a new investment from Japanese energy group ENEOS. This money will be used by Zypp to expand its electric car rental service to Southeast Asia early next year.

Zypp’s goal is to be present in 15 markets in the next 2 years. To start, Zypp will select at least one Southeast Asian country to launch the test service. Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines are potential markets considered by Zypp, because these are countries with high demand for two-wheeled vehicles and developed delivery activities.

In addition to Southeast Asia, Zypp is also in preliminary discussions about expanding into the Middle East.

Currently, Zypp is operating in major Indian cities such as Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The company provides electric vehicle rental services in the form of “EV-as-a-service” (electric vehicle rental on demand) for e-commerce businesses and freelance workers. The service includes a mobile app that provides data and analytics for fleet and delivery management, along with a fleet of electric two-wheelers.

About 28% of Zypp’s revenue comes from freelancers, who can rent electric vehicles by the day, week or month. The rest comes from delivery, e-commerce, food delivery, grocery and ride-sharing companies such as Amazon, BigBasket, DHL, Uber, Swiggy, Zepto and Zomato. Currently, Zypp’s platform is being used to make 5 million deliveries per month.

Zypp is focusing on expanding its business in both geography and scale. Previously, the company planned to expand its fleet to 200,000 electric two-wheeled vehicles and be present in 30 Indian cities by the end of 2025. However, Zypp decided to focus on deeply exploiting existing markets instead of expanding massively into new cities.

Besides two-wheeled electric vehicles, Zypp has also started offering three-wheeled electric vehicles in Delhi and Bengaluru, with plans to expand to Mumbai in the near future. The three-wheeled vehicle line currently contributes 10% of the company’s total revenue.

Zypp currently has about 15,000 electric two-wheelers in Delhi, 5,000 in Bengaluru, 1,000 in Mumbai and 500 in Hyderabad. “Our goal is to focus on exploiting these markets and also open a new market every quarter,” said Akash Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Zypp.

Next year, Zypp plans to increase the size of its two-wheeled electric vehicle fleet from 22,000 to 50,000 vehicles. The company’s further goal is to reach 200,000 electric two-wheeled vehicles within the next two and a half years.

Last February, Zypp raised $25 million in a Series B funding round led by Gogoro (Taiwan). In addition, Zypp also receives support from major investors such as Goodyear Ventures, Google for Startups and Shell E4.

Mr. Gupta said Zypp is now operating profitable and is on track to achieve net profit (EBITA) in the next 6-8 months and profit after tax in 12-14 months.