The global automobile sector is about to be thrown into disarray. The automobile industry is being disrupted by four technology-driven trends: electrification, shared mobility, connectivity, and autonomous driving. These developments will alter markets and revenue pools, alter mobility behaviour, and open new opportunities for competition and collaboration.
With the emergence of EVs in India, Statiq has risen to the occasion and has utilized it to build India’s largest network of public charging stations for EVs in India. Statiq provides an end-to-end ecosystem by providing in-house chargers, installations, and remote charger management services. Statiq was envisaged by a team of two engineers who felt stagnated with their corporate jobs, Akshit and Raghav (Co-Founders) with one goal in mind, to leave a legacy with the work they did.
In the quest for this, the team combined their human capital with Akshit bringing his experience in e-mobility and Raghav his leadership skills to the table. Together they started Statiq. Conceptualized at the onset of a pandemic, this duo did not bow down to the empirical challenges that were in front of them. Through profound deliberations, cooperation and trust in each other and the team, they continued to aggressively pitch their product to multiple stakeholders and were successful in gaining the requisite funds and developing the infrastructure needed to kick start their dreams. Read along to know more about Statiq.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
What is the current scenario of the industry that you are catering to?
E-mobility is expanding at an ambitious pace in India. The trend of adopting EVs as an alternative to ICE vehicles is a growing one as EVs are emerging as the sustainable and affordable solution. The government is also contributing to a great extent to boost the presence of EVs in India. With the latest extension of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle (FAME) scheme by two years to March 31, 2024, the future of E-Mobility in India is promising. Additionally, this scheme not only subsidizes EV purchases but is also instrumental in the development of EV infrastructure and will provide funds and incentives to local manufactures to produce EVs.
Is your startup bootstrapped or are you looking for funding options?
At the inception of Statiq, we wanted to raise SEED capital and were Incubated by NASSCOM in December 2019. We pitched our startup to a variety of investors and were successful in closing the SEED round by October 2020. We are always in the pursuit of meeting and collaborating with stakeholders who wish to step into the realm of e-mobility and share our vision of making an impact on the environment by empowering sustainable transportation in India.
How has the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic influenced your business operations?
The ongoing pandemic has been unprecedented and has restricted our movements. It has shifted the work online and resulted in a drastic downscale of EV sales in India as well. Though it slowed our progress and delayed decision-making, our team stayed focused and motivated. The imposition of the lockdown restricted our movements and made the installation of chargers a challenge. However, at the same time, it reduced pollution in majority of Indian cities drastically which pushed the bandwagon on the ‘air pollution debate’ ferociously and will go a long way to boost the expansion of EVs in the Indian markets in future. Since then, myriad companies like Zomato, Flipkart, etc., have publicly declared a shift to EV technology for delivery vehicles which is indeed an encouraging trend for us.
As a startup, what steps are you taking to acquire new customers or retain the existing ones in these challenging times of Covid-19?
The Covid-19 has been challenging, especially for a startup that was conceptualized at the onset of a pandemic. However, we ensured that our operations continued smoothly as we upscaled our research and development in the EV charging mechanisms and our team worked tirelessly to communicate and effectively collaborate with one another. We adopted an aggressive approach when it came to fundraising and we decided to spread information about the benefits of e-mobility through social media and create wide awareness. We were successful in taking the parallel positive approach and rode on the sentiment that ‘EV is the future’ and approached all our clients, stakeholders with absolute zeal and motivation.
What kind of products or services does your startup offer?
Statiq provides an end-to-end ecosystem by providing in-house chargers, installations, and remote charger management services. We do so by collaborating with hosts to provide EV charging stations to business owners in the following ways:
- We provide in-house charging solutions with the optimum services
- We provide in-house Charger Stations Management Systems
The Statiq App is available for both Android and iOS users. Customers can use the application to locate a charging station, book a charging session and pay for it electronically as well. It is easy to use, wherein the customer can Discover, Book, and Pay on the go.
What kind of challenges have you faced while incorporating your company?
It is true that ‘everyday day is a risk while heading a startup’ and we had to consider a lot of aspects from funding, to take into consideration all our hardware and software requirements, evaluating our Minimum Product Value (MVP) while deciding the approach that we wanted to adopt for the start-up to flourish. We considered every challenge as an opportunity to compete and took them head-on as a team. We faced immense infrastructural challenges at the onset of Statiq but through our resilience and teamwork, we were able to come up with formidable solutions.
Where do you envision yourself and your company to be in the long run and what are your future goals?
Statiq is not just another start-up on the tech block. We are a start-up with a mission. A mission of sustainability! It is the amalgamation of technology and innovation wherein every decision is taken keeping the environmental perspective in mind. In the day and age, when EV’s are emerging at a rapid scale, Statiq has been conceptualized with the perspective of making the Indian roads EV friendly by installing easy to use and customer friendly EV chargers around each block. Technology is the cornerstone for Statiq, and sustainability is at the core of sourcing, production, and distribution as we aim to reduce our carbon footprint. Our future goal is to expand our operations and ensure EV charging stations are accessible to all in India. At the same time, we wish to engage in information dissemination around EVs and spread awareness about the merits of e-mobility. We are here to help take charge of your future and make your surroundings greener and cleaner by providing affordable and convenient charging solutions for your EV.
