[Funding alert] EV Startup Turno raises $3.1 mn in Seed round of funding

Commercial electric vehicle startup Turno has raised $3.1 million in seed funding round from Stellaris Venture Partners and Avaana Capital.

The round also saw participation from other angle investors like BigBasket’s Vipul Parekh, Zestmoney’s Lizzie Chapman and Priyamvada Sharma, Urban Ladder’s Ashish Goel, Rohit Bhat of Airavat Capital, Eight Roads’ Aditya Systla, and the Goenka Family Office.

The company plans to use this money to enhance its technology and expand its footprint. It will also use the new capital to increase hiring, particularly in the tech and marketing verticals.

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The Bengaluru-based Turno was launched two months ago, It operates in the retail cargo three-wheeler (3W) segment and claims to have already captured 75% market share.

With this funding, the company aims to come out of stealth mode and expand to Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat and NCR in the coming months.

“At Turno, we envision the future of transportation to be electric, with zero dependence on fossil fuels. Today, commercial vehicles constitute about 80-85% of the entire fuel consumption in the country and we want to replace the diesel miles in them with electric miles,” said, Hemanth Aluru, cofounder and CEO of Turno.

The company suggests a vehicle as per the use-case and then provides financing to the customer to buy the EV.

Hemanth said the startup deploys credit scores and other proprietary systems to grade candidates. Throughout the life of the EV, it also tracks the battery and other EV metrics to monitor the health of the EV.

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It also offers resale guarantee to its customers and plans to make it a separate revenue generating vertical in the near future.

 It also plans to foray into other related domains, such as Insurtech, in the coming times.

The company has tied up with leading OEMs like Mahindra, Piaggio, Omega Seki Mobility, Etrio, and others.

The startup also intends to be the ‘orchestrator’ of the commercial EV market, Hemanth added, “We are building tech, we are working with NBFCs to bring capital and we are also bringing value to the market. All that means is that we are serving the customer from end-to-end. This is what sets us apart.” 

About Turno

Turno (Brand of Blubble pvt ltd) is an Electric Vehicle company, that helps operators of commercial vehicles to switch to EVs. Turno does this by providing a wide selection of vehicles from partner OEMs, affordable financing, and battery value guarantees to ensure the highest return on value for EV owners.

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Turno’s mission is to transition gasoline miles to electric miles in India. Turno is founded by Hemanth Aluru and Sudhindra Reddy Pidapa – experienced entrepreneurs in the mobility industry with a strong track record of value creation. Recently, they led Zoomcar, India’s largest personal mobility platform.