Deepika Padukone Makes An Investment In Electric Taxi Startup Blu Smart

Deepika Padukone, besides her acting career, has ventured into the startup field as an investor. The list, until now, includes a food and beverage startup and an aerospace firm. Now, there is one more name added to this list and it is a startup focusing on electric vehicles.

Electric taxi startup Blu Smart is now seeking investment to boost its operations. The startup, before its Series A funding, has now had $3 million in investments, including investments from KA Enterprises, Deepika Padukone’s family firm.

Blu Smart’s plan is to expand its presence to different cities across the country including Mumbai, Delhi-NCR. Hyderabad, and Pune. The company also wants to expand its fleet of electric cars. As stated on the company’s official website, Blu Smart will add to its fleet of vehicles electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model 3, Mahindra eVerito, and Tata Tigor EV in the coming years.

Once Blu Smart finishes its Series A funding, the company aims to kickstart its service in international markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore by the second half of 2020. The company’s target is to add 15,000 chargers to the already existing 2500 chargers in 2021.

Deepika Padukone wasn’t the only one to make an investment in Blu Smart. Others including Sanjiv Bajaj from Bajaj Capital MD, Rajat Gupta-ex McKinsey CEO, Rajesh Agarwal from Micromax, JITO Angel Network, Survam Partners, Kalpavriksh Trust, Rohit Chanana, and others.

Blu Smart first operated its service in Delhi-NCR with 70 Mahindra eVeritos. At the moment, the number of vehicles has reached 200 EVs. By November 2019, the figure will hit 500 including vehicles running in Mumbai.