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Akshay Shekhar (Kazam) on the India Energy Stack: UPI for Electricity
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Most founders spend to acquire customers, but Kazam built an EV charging business where customers pay upfront and the cost of acquisition turns positive. Akshay Shekhar breaks down the India EV charging infrastructure playbook, from a broken first prototype to 250,000 charge points and a shot at the country's next open digital network for energy.
What makes this story unusual is where it started, a Hindi and English YouTube channel reviewing early EVs, which the founder of Kazam used as cheap market research before building any hardware. Akshay Shekhar, a second-time founder who passed through PepsiCo and Godrej after a failed IKEA-style furniture venture, now runs a device-agnostic platform that helps fleets, OEMs and utilities install, manage and monetize EV charging.
In this conversation with host Akshay Datt, he explains why he calls hardware a distribution wedge rather than the business, how load-balancing software cut fleet vehicles left uncharged overnight from 40 percent to under 10 percent, and why India wastes double-digit percentages of power at night that smart charging can absorb. With revenue up 4X to 6 million dollars and the India Energy Stack taking shape, the timing on peer-to-peer energy trading makes this a sharp read on where EV charging is headed.
👉How Kazam turned a YouTube channel and one Facebook ad into 20,000 leads and 1,500 paying charging hosts
👉Why Akshay Shekhar runs a positive CAC model where customers pay for hardware instead of the company spending to acquire them
👉What the Pine Labs playbook of hardware, SaaS and transaction fees looks like applied to EV charging infrastructure
👉How Kazam cut fleet vehicles left uncharged overnight from 40 percent to under 10 percent with load-balancing software, winning clients like BigBasket
👉Why peer-to-peer energy trading and the Unified Energy Interface could become the UPI moment for electricity in India
Subscribe to Founder Thesis for weekly founder conversations and follow Akshay Datt on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshaydatt/ for daily insights.
00:00 - The Gateway For New Energy Explained
02:29 - Building The Petrol Pump For EVs
06:00 - YouTube Channel As Market Research
08:59 - One Ad, 20,000 Charging Leads
10:32 - The Broken Prototype First Order
12:31 - Type 6 vs Type 7 Charging
22:16 - Load Balancing EV Fleet Charging
30:02 - Peer To Peer Energy Trading
41:12 - Why Kazam Isn't A Hardware Company
48:41 - Vehicle To Grid Battery Arbitrage
58:15 - Founder Lessons From A Failure
#Kazam #AkshayShekhar #FounderThesis #AkshayDatt #EVChargingIndia #ElectricVehicles #EVInfrastructure #IndiaStartups #EVChargingStation #IndiaEnergyStack #UnifiedEnergyInterface #EVChargingBusiness #StartupIndia #PeerToPeerEnergyTrading #EVStartup #HowToStartEVChargingBusiness #IndiaEVMarket #CleanEnergyIndia #EnergyTransition #founderpodcast
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel
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Transcript
Origins of Kazam and Vision for EVs
00:00:00
Speaker
It started actually as a YouTube channel. We ran an ad on Facebook and Google. We said, make money from your parking spot. Are you building the comparable petrol pump ecosystem for EVs?
00:00:13
Speaker
Now electricity has come to your house and your house has become the petrol pump. Akshay Shekhar started out as a YouTuber reviewing electric cars. Today he runs an EV energy platform that has sold a quarter of a million charge points and raised $20 million. dollars He joins Akshay Dutt on the Founder Thesis podcast to explain how he built one of India's most capital-efficient companies.
00:00:34
Speaker
One EV like, ah you know, a say a four-wheeler on average consumes three to five times the electricity of your house in one go. Everybody's going to come back at 6-7 in the evening and plug their vehicles. They literally let energy get wasted if there is not enough consumption. Real money is going to be made on energy.
00:00:59
Speaker
Akshay Shekhar, you are the founder and CEO of Kazam. Welcome to the Founder Thesis podcast. ah
Global Expansion and Energy Management
00:01:07
Speaker
How would you describe Kazam? So and I think the entire world is transitioning to new energy.
00:01:13
Speaker
Now new energy is basically electricity in the form of electricity which can be produced both in green as well as in the normal form that it is available today. And that is going to be used for a plethora of things. And one of them could be electric vehicles so that, you know, you charge a vehicle and transform mobility altogether. So Kazam is basically the gateway for new energy ah in India first. And now we've expanded to the global south.
00:01:40
Speaker
um So what do i mean by a a gateway, right? A gateway is, you know, first getting an access to charging stations where you can find this new energy and start using them. Second is to be able to manage this charging stations and the energy in itself in terms of how much you're using, what is the efficiency, etc. And third is to do more with this energy. Once there's a data layer on top, you can actually do a lot more in terms of, ah you know, behavior analysis, behavior science, AI on top of it and so on and so forth. So there is like lot of use cases that can be built on this foundation of, ah you know, access and manage. So that's what we give. We are the gateway for new energy.
Collaboration and Initial Challenges
00:02:21
Speaker
Okay. You know, I can see on your LinkedIn, you had like a strategy role in Pepsi and, you know, we just thought consultant talked like the gateway to new energy. ah I remember we were chatting previously and I asked you that,
00:02:35
Speaker
ah Just like you had a petrol pump ah ecosystem for ice engine engine vehicles, are you building the so comparable petrol pump ecosystem for EVs?
00:02:49
Speaker
You are absolutely right. though abe lowki We are building the new petrol pump equivalent. But the only difference in this new energy is that Energy is available in your house to where you're sitting on like when I'm doing this podcast, it's there on my desk. That's why my laptop is connected. So up imagine that, you know, petrol was available to you in your house, in your tap, you would actually end up using or filling your vehicle.
00:03:16
Speaker
so In some places you get piped natural gas which comes to you and you still use it over there and you would prefer that way more than a cylinder in your house. Right. So it is a very similar phenomenon. Now electricity has come to your house and your house has become the petrol pump.
00:03:32
Speaker
Okay. So we give you that entire infrastructure in terms of installing which charger to buy in terms of your vehicle and also managing it so that, you know, you don't get up two in the night to switch it off and all of those things. It's all completely digitized. So upand this is the crude way of understanding what we're really building.
00:03:49
Speaker
What did you start as? Because see, today what you're telling me is a like a refined version which has been through iterations. But what was the day one version? Actually, the idea was that we want to do something together like me and Vaibhav. So we thought that we should do something as a venture because we were very enthusiastic to build something in the entrepreneur space. So he was in the energy space and while putting up a lot of solar rooftops for residential zones and all, he was talking about the utility company. So utility company said that when an EV comes, there is this new industry being formed of EV and everyone will have EV at their house. So they will all come back and plug their vehicles. So one EV like, you know, say a four wheeler on average consumes three to five times electricity of your house in one go.
00:04:50
Speaker
And everybody is going to come back at 6-7 in the evening and plug their vehicles. So the utility company was getting shit scared that what's going to happen. ah And I think that is where ah the idea kind of came that we will manage this energy, we will help people charge at 12 in the night, 2 in the night and all of those things. And ah we first wanted to see that be
Marketing Strategies and Growth
00:05:13
Speaker
going to be. Because you know, there's so much investment and it that time and effort right to do all of these things also shouldn't go in ways. So it started actually as a YouTube channel, Akshay. So actually was electric vehicle news in Hindi and English.
00:05:29
Speaker
where we were doing reviews of guys who had bought the first versions of Tata, Nexon and the Revolts of the World at that point of time. And I think we had a lot of 2-3 videos, at least in our purview at that point of time, that we were getting 15-20,000 views organically. So, we thought that there is something that people are really thinking about or at least watching this. Why are they gaining so much of interest around this? That was the Eureka moment. What will be EVs in this event? What will be our play?
00:06:06
Speaker
catchla ima right key hammara pla ya ray what will be r play in all of these things And that is where we realize that India, the landscape is very, very different. We are a two three wheeler first economy. So there are 35 crore vehicles in India or 350 million was out of that 300 or 30 crores are two and three wheelers.
00:06:26
Speaker
And all the top four or five brands, like, you know, 90% of them are Indian brands. And, know, all the ancillaries, all, ah you know, the ah things that are needed to support this ecosystem is also in India. Because we are the largest consumer of this segment for the world.
00:06:44
Speaker
to and price point hit. So we realized that people are really going to adopt to this because that interest of mindset of Indians, petrol, CNG or diesel, how much money I am going to get back to the km. That mindset we came to know through the channel. And I think that really helped us identify that real money is going to be made on Energy, because vehicles will be used one time, but energy you'll have to consume every day. So how do we get this play? And also with the experience of, you know, talking to a lot of utility companies, we had that kind of understanding that do we get the electrical infrastructure?
00:07:22
Speaker
So I think that both of these put together, you know, that thesis kind of started coming in place with us. So we started in December 2020, September we started on our YouTube channel. there And in 2-3 months with we became very you know sure about that we have to do this. But one thing we got to know, the software is the last place that we will be doing. First we have to build the asset class etc.
00:07:46
Speaker
So I think that really helped ah you know ah start. kihava We were open to everything. Asset, we will make charging station banana from grounds up.
00:07:58
Speaker
Like you decided charging station as your first product to build? your Yes. Okay. Charging station for like installing as a commercial like we often see in parking places now they have these charging stations something like that? No, no, no. What did we do is we with the YouTube channel we ran an ad on Facebook and Google.
00:08:24
Speaker
We said make money from your parking spot. Okay, this is a campaign that we ran and you know, you would be surprised in 2020 during COVID time, we got around 20,000 leads.
00:08:40
Speaker
Okay, and we converted 1500 of them. in a span of say two months, okay, in between September to December. And it was not even like that. At this time launched? pre-Ola. No, no, no. There were not big brands who had launched it. All of us know that little people were there, except Hero Electric was there, but and it was not really a fast vehicle or, you know, the most enthusiastic vehicle that you would say. Ether was there definitely, but also very early days of it. But they were much smaller. Yeah. very small, not a lot of people really knew Aether. So, you know, we did this, but everybody what we realized is, you know, in in the Indian mindset, there was always this thing, I want to be a petrol pump owner.
00:09:26
Speaker
Okay, and that you know, you you generally get cash flow continuously coming through that. That's the mindset. So that kind of made sense for everybody saying, I can put this up in my house and maybe become the petrol pump owner of the future. Right. I think that really made us get that conviction also that we will do it. But if there is no hardware, it has to be made of hardware.
00:09:50
Speaker
Okay. Like you assembled it or like imported the components? My first charge was fully broken. So what happened was
Exploring EV Charging Standards
00:09:59
Speaker
ah I knew and a little bit of new product development and stuff from where I came. And as I told you, i was a second time entrepreneur. thought our techwe banallia the per be though I got a bunch of guys and I started building the first charging station with my engineering college friends.
00:10:18
Speaker
Okay. ah And we made the first model, but our mechanical design and all was very bad. So it was not like sticking together and you had to do really some kind of juggah to put the socket in to charge your vehicle.
00:10:32
Speaker
And I had to send it in bulk because I can go to manufacturing and really think of setting that up at that point of time. So I bought the first in Bangalore, I got a logistics company which was doing deliveries for now all the quick commerce and e-commerce guys. And they had like a around 100-150 vehicles at that point of time. So I went with that broken device. I thought that, you know, what will happen? But I just went. It was not working. It didn't even start. But I think I was wearing my good shirt or jeans. I don't know what it was that they liked about me. either They ended up giving me an order because I think competition was too less. And, you know, it was very early days. We were very open to experiment, I would say, at that point of time. ah
00:11:21
Speaker
And I got my first 100 device order and ah we then started actually building it very seriously. We hired a mechanical engineer. Now it's all right. ah But then since then we really scaled very well. And then we were able to support ah in policy making in also making this like a BIS standard ah for two and three wheelers and stuff.
00:11:47
Speaker
BIS standard, the like and there's something I remember hearing from some other EV founders as well about the different standards and compatibility.
00:11:59
Speaker
ah So like just first tell me yeah what are the types of charging technologies and their compatibility within them? Like, you know, for example, with mobile phones, you had a lot of proprietary devices jacks or those which today uniformly USB-C.
00:12:16
Speaker
ah Has the EV charging space gone through something similar in terms of a variety of standards? and You're absolutely right. You hit the nail in terms of comparing an EV with a cell phone.
00:12:30
Speaker
Because when in 2020 it was the same thing, that it's a different Motorola, Nokia is different, and Samsung is different, and everybody has their own shape form etc. I would say now we are in the era, ah in the two three wheeler, I think finally standards have come that you have like only two right now.
00:12:49
Speaker
One is the type 7 and type 6. Okay, these are the two forms of guns that you can use to charge your vehicle. So it is like, you know, Apple and USB-C, Apple Lightning and USB-C. So that is the place where we are. And what's the difference between but these two types?
00:13:07
Speaker
ah There is, i would say the Type 7 has AC and DC to be charged together. So you can have two outputs coming in at the same time. ah But on the type 6, it is like a fast charging DC, you can either choose one, right. So that is then extra provision that is there in type 7. Type 7 I think was first made by Aether.
00:13:29
Speaker
They were using this tag, they scaled it up ah very well. And then it became a, they open sourced this also for you everyone and then it became a standard in itself. So that is the journey of type 7. Type 6 was also influenced by the bigger OEMs and also was used partially outside of India, which really helped all of these OEMs to start picking up from that direction. So this is the story behind both these standards kind of coming in play. but One question, kind kind of basic, like...
00:14:01
Speaker
This AC and DC, can you just explain it to me? Like, why would ah you need AC and DC output both on a charging du device? Okay, so every battery actually gets charged on DC.
00:14:15
Speaker
Okay, what is DC? Direct current. Direct current means in a single line say current is flowing. AC is alternating like it's going up and down and up and down. So that's how ah AC works. ah Electricity which reaches our homes across the world is AC. So it's coming like this sinusoidal.
00:14:34
Speaker
And because you have to now charge a battery or something, even for your phones, right, you have that small charger, which is converting from AC to DC and charging your phone. So now ah in the vehicle, there are two options. One is you get like a AC to DC converter, which is also called as a rectifier along with the vehicle. It could be fitted inside your vehicle or it could be fitted. It will be given like a separate, you know, like an adapter to you separately outside the vehicle. that you plug it in from AC and then you convert it into DC. Now, as you want to do more and more fast charging, the DC brick, the adapter becomes bigger and bigger.
00:15:14
Speaker
So you don't want to carry so much of weight. And at the same time, you don't want to invest so much in the DC charger. So it is kept separately so that it gets used more because of the cost that is there in it. And you get better economies of scale for the person who has bought the charging station. So that is a DC charger, which will also charge your you know battery with DC only, but much faster because it it has so much of a capability to kind of convert that AC and give you that output in DC.
00:15:45
Speaker
So that is the two differentiator of AC and DC. So if you're using your one, which comes along with the vehicle, it is called as AC charging and you use the AC outpu output from the charging station. If you are talking of DC charging, then you are using the DC output directly from the charging station to your vehicle.
00:16:05
Speaker
Okay. And ah for a manufacturer, how do they decide that do they want to give an AC charger or not? Cost is one of the first primary aspect.
00:16:16
Speaker
Customer experience is the second primary aspect ah that they would really look at. So customer experience, I'm guessing is this, that ah if you have that AC adapter, then you can plug it in at your home also. If you don't have it, then you need to go to that ah charging station. Specific space.
00:16:33
Speaker
Ah. which has a DC. Okay, got called it. Okay. um And also, you know, so everybody's experimenting, we don't know what really consumer is wanting, ah which will scale, you know, extraordinarily, because every consumer has different mindset, because they have not experienced, ah you know, owning an ERI before, right. So some will say, I want to just do swapping and you know, do it. But You know, if you ask me, I would not want to do it because it I have to carry like 10 gauges of weight of a battery pack and then lift it and do it. I forget, you know, my mother or my sister doing this. right It's like even more tougher for them. um
00:17:12
Speaker
So I would choose maybe charging, you know, because of my convenience and the way I want to do it. ah You could have also, um you know, so the then there are two parts, right? Then the OEM has to think, he should I just give AC charging as an option and not build capability only for fast charging? Like that was the case for all the two and three wheelers currently in the market before this era. that they were only able to do AC charging.
00:17:37
Speaker
Okay. They did not have DC charging as a capability except for one or two OEMs, right? So, that was, you know, something that was okay at that point of time. Now, people want to charge their vehicle in 20-30 minutes and have that flexibility. Yes, I can charge the vehicle in the station.
00:17:55
Speaker
So, now the charging point in the vehicle where the plug gets plugged in, it can ah take both AC and DC. That's what you're saying. Correct. ah but There are every OEM is in a different stage of adoption. But in the four wheeler category, I would say definitely this has been the case since a very long time where that same output ah input can take both AC and DC. It's called CCS combined charging system.
00:18:24
Speaker
Why is it combined? Because it can take AC at certain time and DCS. So that is why it is called CCS. And it will auto detect the nature of current and handle it like all that technology would be.
00:18:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is this entire background technology that is happening where, you know, the vehicle is talking to the charging station through a port called as control pilot and proximity pilot. So proximity pilot basically is doing the handshake saying that, hey, you know what, I'm in your proximity. I'm the one who is but connected to you. Right. And then there is this control pilot, which will basically, ah you know, the vehicle will say that, hey, you know, my battery is hot. ah Give me less current right now.
00:19:04
Speaker
Or, you know, I'm i'm very hungry and and completely ready. i Give me as much power as you want. Or the charging station saying that, hey, you know what, there is some surge coming from electricity. i can't give you so much electricity, even if you want. at All of those talking is happening on the background with both these parties and you know then the charging happens so that it is safe for a human being, for the vehicle and the surrounding. right All three have to be protected. So that's what happens.
00:19:31
Speaker
and Let's go back to your story. ah you you you ah hit You said you manufactured and sold 100 units ah of the charging point.
00:19:42
Speaker
In April 21. Whom did you set it to? ah There's a company called Lightning Logistics. So this was for their fleet? This was a fleet operator? This was a fleet operator. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it. And this was bootstrapped at at this stage?
00:19:58
Speaker
At this stage, we had a term sheet in place. Oh, okay. What was the pitch? the The new petrol pump? Yeah. yeah so the new petrol pump. Absolutely right. So we are building a new petrol pumps of the you know new era. Yeah.
00:20:14
Speaker
So invest in us. So we had a crowdfunding, we raised capital from a, ah you know, crowdfunding place, marketplace angel network, you know, so-called in India called as IPV and raised around 7 crores then, ah which was a million at that point of time. Now it is not, but yeah. Right. Okay. Okay. So that helped you get your manufacturing off the ground. ah And ah so how did that ah initial business of selling to fleet operators, how did that evolve? So initial, your obvious target was that whoever has fleet, he needs charging infrastructure.
00:20:55
Speaker
right u quoto He wants to run his vehicle 24-7, so So he has to charge it and the biggest problem at that point of time was that he was still charging pen lagarre but they were not getting information that he was fully charged or not.
00:21:10
Speaker
So imagine that fleet is a warehouse and in that you have plugged, that warehouse is going to be cramped because you know you don't want to optimize the space as much as possible. Right. So behind one vehicle, there will be another vehicle standing, which will not be charged. Okay. Which will be waiting for charging. Now at night, the security guard is like the champion of the place. it was cool but that and arch give i bay one me bangarna be to meru garna He's like on this what he has to do. And obviously you make mistake, you he's a human. So not all vehicles are getting charged fully and stuff like that. And they were getting also, ah there is a thing called as overload charges on your electricity bill. So if you use more capacity than what has been given to you, then you end up paying all of these things. So woby build jaa raha so they had to have some technology to manage all of these things. And I think we demonstrated that. Obviously, it started as a POC before the order came in. They were not, I i think, so stupid to look at my shirt and just give me an order. they did her
00:22:18
Speaker
They did, you know, do a POC and ah we proved all of these things, you know, from almost 40% of vehicles not being charged next day morning. ah it dropped down to just I would say five ten percent And I remember making the security guard my best friend. So ah my work would start at 10 in the night when the vehicles are here like you know what's happening. i go a charles or i can a tech chi likeking make I think it was a lot of fun times I would say. So these were ah these charging points were all
00:22:51
Speaker
ah talking to each other or each charging point its Yeah, they were talking to each other. Okay, so they were talking to each other and so there was like tower or a control panel or something like that. was Yeah, so they were connected on the s sim to our backend, to the cloud infrastructure. Now from the cloud infrastructure, we had, you know, kind of put them together in one hub saying that, you you need to now talk to each other and be in a certain limit of electricity. And that is called as load balancing today.
00:23:18
Speaker
And they were talking to each other saying that, you know, this is the total load now coming instantaneously. And they were controlling basis on the what is being fed to them.
00:23:29
Speaker
ah And ah the charging point itself would display 100% when the battery was fully charged. so No, the security guard will get a notification. ah may one me out tes got be two meja with our image So he would, is because how will he again go to that place where it is super cramped? He can't even see what is happening. Got it. Okay. So then from here, how did the business evolve?
00:23:54
Speaker
From this small ah April, I think April and May. A lot of these again startups were coming up saying that you know they are going to take EVs and you know start doing a lot of deliveries etc. because the arbitrage was available you know from EV to petrol so that they could give lower cost of deliveries ah and you know still be making more money than the petrol guys. So that was the concept but there is another story. you are So yeah you said arbitrage was available. It is still available
00:24:26
Speaker
Now, you understand that it's almost skill because most of the delivery guys are moving towards EV and there is ah there are issues of working capital. EV and petrol fundamentally arbitrage is still there.
00:24:40
Speaker
haha For a passenger, there is a great amount of arbitrage that is there. So, if you bought a vehicle, ah So today, even a 20 lakh vehicle, if you are comparing with each other, the amount of features that you would get on EV would be, I would say a little bit more superior and your running cost, ah right, would be one, one fifth, one sixth of it.
00:25:05
Speaker
Right. So I was just talking to a friend. He said that he used to pay around 45,000 rupees per month on petrol. They had a driver, they had a car and stuff like that and then moved to MG Windsor the bill has only gone up by 5-6000 rupees.
00:25:20
Speaker
So you're saying like the EMI plus ah electricity bill combined versus EMI plus petrol bill. So that this this is in the industry, they call it TCO, total cost yeah total cost of ownership.
00:25:32
Speaker
huh So total cost of ownership in two, or three wheeler was available, you know, when we started building, it was at break even. Now that has become much, much better. In the four wheeler, it is now I would say closer to break even, but you need to really, ah you know, that five last car is not available yet.
00:25:51
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. This, ah ah earlier you said it was break even and now it's a lot cheaper to own EVs. That's because petrol prices are rising.
00:26:04
Speaker
Federal prices are rising, uncertainty around it is rising. um Also battery cost, battery pack prices have reduced significantly over the period of time because of the scale in manufacturing and stuff like that. So and it's like ever dropping.
00:26:18
Speaker
So I would say that it's becoming more and more cheaper. Batteries are following like this Moore's Law. yes so chilicon chips me mos low pay that Like is very similar.
00:26:29
Speaker
Power expand or whatever something, memory capacity expands every two years. Capacity expands. Capacity doubles every two years, something like that. So similar is happening in battery. Like the same battery will double its capacity every two years. Are we seeing that?
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, manufacturers will double their capacity thinking, you know, and right now I would say that they are already sitting on more capacity and hence they're figuring out other use cases like BESS and so on and so forth. Like if you really, I don't know the numbers, but if you look at, ah you know, the BESS, the battery energy storage systems, tenders that are coming out, ah you know, in the market, in the Indian market, ah prices of every tender is almost like three times lower than the previous one.
00:27:11
Speaker
And ah they are they are like really crashy. Same thing maybe you can see happen in the solar, you know, the photovoltaic cells, etc. that happened at that time.
00:27:21
Speaker
So very similar trend. This BESS is essentially a power backup. It's an alternative to a genset. height It's an alternative to a genset, all the way from the genset to, ah you know, your in your house, you had those lid acid batteries and you would keep that up the inverter. you are right It can go all the way till there. So, yeah. Okay. The inverter was also essentially a BESS only, right? Yes. Yeah, it is a BESS. Got it. Okay. take it So, a BESS essentially just stores energy so that when there is power failure or outages, then it draws it from the battery and then... I guess it has some other benefits also like it will ah ah if the pricing of energy is dynamic then it will get some arbitrage because of that like it'll draw more energy from the grid when the price is lower things like that also
00:28:16
Speaker
But India has dynamic pricing. So that is do more of Kazam. So as I said, you know, we we are the gateway of new energy. So what once we have combined data with, you know, the and sale of energy, now we can do, as I said, behavior sciences. We can tell consumers to start charging at 2 in the night, 3 in the night, so that it's the cheapest. But India has dynamic pricing?
00:28:40
Speaker
Time of day. Yes. Okay. Commercial or even in residential? ah Residential also they have started now. Time of day in few states. The second thing that they are doing is they are asking consumers to use excess solar that is available. So we have built this new tech called as peer-to-peer energy trading with the the government. With Root of Solar. kiats how rooftop solar you can use to now charge your vehicle and the rooftop solar guy he has put the solar but has a lot of credits available which he could never monetize so now he is able to monetize it and you know sell it to his neighbor to for him to charge his vehicle so that is happening as we speak right now and this entire program is under IES so India Energy Stack It's been built by Nandan Nilekani, who built UPI, Aadhaar and everything for the you know for country. And it's been now monitored by, it's been handed over to ah REC, ah that is the public sector company, which also kind of controls and has influence over the utility distribution companies.
00:29:50
Speaker
So, the first trades are now happening between states as well. So, you could be in Delhi and I could be in Mumbai and we I could buy your solar rooftop, ah electricity and consume in Mumbai.
00:30:02
Speaker
But I don't understand this. What is the... This is like a fungible thing, right? where Power is power. What is the deal with buying Yor? That Yor that you up with the emphasize, you're just feeding it to the grid and grid will buy.
00:30:18
Speaker
See, you're absolutely right. It is it is also like money. It's also like money. When I give you money on UPI, my money from Mumbai is not going to move to you in Japan. Got it.
00:30:32
Speaker
okay It's accounting. Got it. Got Okay. So it's may you're saying that individuals can also like directly strike a deal. Yeah. And that is what is happening.
00:30:43
Speaker
ah It's an open market. It's a bid now saying that, hey, you know what? Electricity is now available at five rupees. So it's already happening in a large scale. They say, you know, in the banking world, any FT, RTGS was already there.
00:30:58
Speaker
even before before UPI came, right? UPI unlocked 1 rupee transactions to happen without me adding a beneficiary. Okay, this is really going to unlock the same where you can now trade your electricity out your home with any home instead of you having say 100 megawatt or 100 kilowatt or 1 megawatt of electricity with you, which the big guys are already doing with a platform called as India Energy Exchange, which is a listed entity on the stock market. I guess this would also eventually become like a, there would be a clearing house where, but when you're selling your equity, you're selling someone, but you don't see that person, that you're selling someone's equity. Clearing house. So, it will be similar clearing house concept over either, we I'm guessing, where you can sell or buy.
00:31:46
Speaker
Essentially, you can trade ah electricity units. Electricity. Correct. Correct. And then you can automate it. So, you know, you can do a smart profiling on it and AI can really take over and say, basis on your behavior, when you really should buy, then you should really charge your vehicle and optimize your ah savings for you. Optimize the savings for you. Okay. So, coming back. ah take So, you...
00:32:09
Speaker
ah got into the charging space of providing charging infra. ah say iga evolution kelly So you also got into data collection and cloud management and algorithmic management, like smart charging. You got into that also.
00:32:24
Speaker
Those two went together, right? Because it it was an evolving market. So it's needed, ah you know, I would say a combination of data on top of energy. You had to marry that and in ensure that you are getting data out of it, which we first did. That was the entire product offering. From you know one fleet it went to 20-25 fleets and you know then it went to the quick commerce players itself. So someone like BigBasket actually ended up putting in all their dark stores ah you know to allow their gig workers to move to EV because they want to reduce their cost and you know there is better economics, they can become much greener in terms of their deliveries etc. So it made a lot more sense for players like them. ah So i think Big Basket was where October 21 and they have still been there with us. So one of the oldest, largest customer for us to be there around.
00:33:19
Speaker
We're in all their dark stores right now. and And I think it was also pretty, I would say, tough challenge because we were also competing with Tata Power back then, which is part of Tata Big Basket in a way. So it was a very tough where we really had to prove our product properly.
00:33:35
Speaker
offerings and in ensure that we are showing reliability in our performance. right I think that that pushed ah that pushed also the government to see that there are players who have scale and are charging a lot of vehicles in the market and how can this be now scaled from 10,000 vehicles to say 1 lakh vehicles or 10 lakh vehicles very quickly. right So that policies were made made around it then.
00:34:02
Speaker
Are you also into this BESS? No, no, we don't make PESs and all. We only do the trading part. So our path was make the charging station, make the software, start digitizing energy.
00:34:16
Speaker
Once the energy is digit digitized, you can do multiple use case. The first use case that we have picked up is the energy trading because we want to reduce the cost. So we want to improve the TCO even better, right? So reduce the cost for consumers.
00:34:29
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay. You also have a consumer business, no? Like not directly to consumer, but like a B2B2C. B2B2C, that's our play. So, you know, OEMs would recommend us ah or, you know, even bundle our products. Okay, bundle. Bundle, right. So, they would actually bundle the wa ah product along with the vehicle. And then the consumer ah starts using our application to charge on a day-to-day basis their vehicle. And that allows us to maintain the relationship with them and also, you know, um help OEMs understand how the behavior is happening with these consumers, etc.
00:35:10
Speaker
This is like a mass manufacturing kind of a game. What kind of margin does this give you, this when your charger is bundled? Because OEMs would have more pricing power than you would, right?
00:35:21
Speaker
OEMs definitely have pricing power, but they also understand that all their ancillaries have to make money. And if you look at, say, large players like Uno, Minda, etc., who also are ultimately servicing the auto segment, you will see them having EBITDA.
00:35:39
Speaker
And I think that's the game that this really will be on the hardware side. You will end up making 10-12% EBITDA on your top line. Okay. And how big is this B2B2C business, your chargers being bundled by OEMs?
00:35:51
Speaker
I think now it is in the early three digits of crores right now. Right. And I think it's just the beginning beginning, right? Because I have only cracked one category of three wheelers. ah We're now getting into, say, four wheelers and two wheelers, etc. to also expand because the vehicle OEM remains the same for us. So ah then it would be a very, very large market.
00:36:15
Speaker
Okay. the ah The charger is pretty much... ah Always sold or is it an optional accessory? Like when you buy an EV? It is not an optional right now. It is basically priced along with the vehicle. um So in a way it is, you can only upgrade. So you can't really say no altogether. You can only upgrade. Say for example, you want a faster charger.
00:36:41
Speaker
Then you pay something additional and upgrade. Like ah from a base variant to an upper variant. Or saying like, you know, you have a 14 inch wheel and now you want a 17 inch wheel. So you take a higher model and, you know, do that.
00:36:54
Speaker
Wheel is not saying that you will not get without the wheel. but But someone like a fleet owner may not necessarily want to buy because they would have their own charging infra. So they would not want to buy that bundled charger. Not always because the adoption is currently growing with all new entrants and new players, right? So that could happen eventually. i don't see it happening immediately. ah right so But then ultimately, even the fleet owner wants to buy infra for their new warehouse or for wherever their parking lot etc. right So there is a B2B route and then there is a B2C route even in the OEM space. And that's how it happens. right Even if I'm thinking of buying Tata Ace, right which is the highest selling commercial vehicle. Then I could be an individual driver trying to do that.
00:37:41
Speaker
Then I need a charge point at my home. I'm a driver come operator, but I could be, say, a Mahindra Logistics trying to buy hundreds of them ah together. So that would go through a B2B route for us as well.
00:37:54
Speaker
Okay. So ah this ah charger business, which you said is like 100 crore plus kind of a business for you now, ah this sounds like heavy manufacturing. And ah so do you have like a factory or like, how does that happen?
00:38:10
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we do have, ah we don't own the factory completely. ah What we do is we operate that factory. It's like a contract manufacturing. Like a contract, you can say a contract at least factory that we kind of operate.
00:38:25
Speaker
And I think the idea for us is also to kind of move towards owning the factory right now because we're in that stage where it now makes sense from our scale point of view to start owning it.
00:38:37
Speaker
Earlier, you know, you actually end up losing money if you put up a factory or the capacity. Right. ah you You've raised, I guess, close to 20 million dollars date.
00:38:48
Speaker
um Yes, I would say in crores, it would be like 160, 150 crores. I'm just wondering, ah you know, typically ah funding a manufacturing setup is not really in the VC playbook.
00:39:05
Speaker
It is not, you're right, but we are not a manufacturing company. I think that is where the, it is our entry point. It is, say, imagine, would you call Pine Labs a manufacturing company?
00:39:18
Speaker
No, yeah, not at all. It's a finance infra. But they ended up giving POS machines, which are physical hardwares for you to connect and start collecting money, right? And eventually, what are they now? They're a software company allowing transactions to happen, multiple gateways where you can trigger them and you can accept payments, right? And that's the play. That's exactly the playbook over here, right? You give the infrastructure, you make the infrastructure ready, allow now to manage it.
00:39:48
Speaker
That's the second step. And the third step is you do more with it. Like, you know, figure out cash bags, you give 0% EMI, similars in the energy space. So that's the playbook here.
00:40:00
Speaker
And rather my CAC has become positive. Imagine that. You have to imagine it in that way that my CAC today, people are paying me to be my consumers by buying the hardware. Just help me understand. Okay, so one part of your revenue is clearly sale of hardware. ah But what you're saying is that there is another revenue from energy, like selling energy?
00:40:23
Speaker
From the management software, from the software layer. So every hardware that goes out has a potential to earn 300 500 rupees per month. And we have already sold 250,000 charge points till date.
00:40:38
Speaker
Right. I also manage, say, Hindustan Petroleum's charge points across the country. So i I know and I ensure that these charges are in a working condition. They are maintained and also are able to charge the vehicles on board. Right. Because I want to ensure that a successful transaction happens over there. So these are opportunities that are already there, which we are catering to as we speak.
00:41:03
Speaker
Got it. Okay. So when someone is buying the hardware, they pay an extra ah monthly subscription for the software part of it, ah which is that second source of revenue for you, the software subscription. ah So that this is again... ah ah Like B2B revenue, do you ah do you also have like a ah margin revenue where you know based on transaction value? Like we were talking of Pine Labs. So Pine Labs is essentially… yes we do.
00:41:35
Speaker
Very simple. All three models. So we have hardware sales like them, we would have a SAS fee like them per asset and we would have an MDR equivalent and which is a transaction fees. So if I am able, if say for example, i have built the charging layer infrastructure or the software for a vehicle OEM. Now from that vehicle OEM app, I could connect say an HPCL to come and start charging. So I'm essentially pushing demand to that particular operator to make money and I will make a transaction fee out of it.
00:42:09
Speaker
That is one layer. The second layer is allowing energy to be traded. So every time an energy gets traded because of me, because i act as a broker, I make margin on ah on it, which is like a percentage of the sale that happens. This energy trading, ah just I want to zoom in a bit on that. I'll zoom in on both of these, the transaction strategies. like revenue on transaction and this energy energy trading revenue. Energy trading is ah because your machines are drawing energy.
00:42:39
Speaker
So ah that energy you are buying on behalf of the operator? Is that what you refer refer to by energy trading? Yeah, so imagine you have put charging point, you have put a Gazzam charge point at your home.
00:42:52
Speaker
Okay. Your electricity bill on an average is coming 10,000 rupees because of the EV space. now you Now there is a potential for you to reduce this by almost 30%. 3,000 rupees you can save ah by buying electricity during times where it is the cheapest.
00:43:10
Speaker
Okay, your neighbor could be selling that same solar to help you consume that. And why because I make that, try i I help you find that bid, i help you buy that bid and consume it also, I will charge you a fee.
00:43:26
Speaker
to do that. It's like the stock market, right? You found HDFC bank as a stock to buy. You asked the clearinghouse to clear it for you. The clearinghouse took some money. So did the broker and so on and so forth. Very similar transaction that happens there. So Per transaction I would make as a percentage. So imagine, you know, making roughly around seven eight percent of it, which is around 200-250 rupees monthly on the basis of that, because you will consume electricity every month. It's not going to be like you will not.
00:43:57
Speaker
So ah this currently would be wholesale only, right? Your example of a house is just a hypothetical. No, no, I'm actually talking of the consumer who has now a Kazam Chargepoint and is able to do this as we speak.
00:44:09
Speaker
How does it happen? You have the Kazam app, you open it and then you say that I want to ah optimize my ah charging. Now this is again for select few consumers. It's not already live for every consumer because it's currently live in few geographies right now because this entire thing is scaling up. You open the app, you find that you have an option called as optimize my energy. You press on that and you have two options.
00:44:35
Speaker
You say auto bidding for you or you say manual bidding. Right. So if you choose on auto bidding, it automatically chooses the windows where you actually end up charging. Or it will tell you that you need to now push by say half an hour, one hour to charge your vehicle. You keep your vehicle plugged in. You don't have to do anything. you just plug it in.
00:44:53
Speaker
It automatically knows it will start charging at that point. Right. Got it. Okay. Super interesting. ah ah How is the mapping done? that Is it by the meter? Like people have a meter in their house.
00:45:04
Speaker
The smart meter in your house, ah you know, it it it sends data at every 15 minutes interval, which is also owned by the, or approved by the utility distribution company. And they get that information into their, um you know, meter data management system. So they know exactly you consume electricity at what time. And they net it off from your bill. So on the bill, you will see that hey, P2P energy traded so much. So your bill was 10,000.
00:45:32
Speaker
You already paid 3000 or whatever 1000 rupees worth of electricity. Right. So 10,000 may 3000 worth has got minus and you paid this 1000. So net bill has been ah you know, 8,000 of which 7,000 you have to pay now, 1,000 was earlier paid as well for the So, like you are authorized to buy electricity on behalf of a consumer's meter number.
00:45:58
Speaker
It's not just she is authorizing me rather or my application and doing the trade, but it is that person who is buying the trade. now yeah The application is just putting an automation layer so that he's not doing it manually.
00:46:12
Speaker
Like how you authorize Zeroda or someone else, right? With ah like a stop loss, you can put a stop loss, it will automatically sell whatever. card is Correct. Okay. Okay. okay Okay. Understood. Very interesting. yeah I'm just visualizing that maybe the battery within the vehicle itself is,
00:46:32
Speaker
could be further arbitraged like that battery has some energy stored in it and when the price is really high you can smell ill you have it the nail so the third form of charging is actually vehicle to grid or vehicle to X as we say you could go to your home you could go to a physical load of an appliance or it could go back to the grid right so that's the X ah that we're really talking of and so AC DC two forms, then you have reverse. So basically from DC to AC.
00:47:05
Speaker
So there's again a rectifier which does that bi directional. So then you send back energy and again, you can choose the same app to say that, hey, you know what I want to sell at the highest point.
00:47:19
Speaker
Right. So that is happening. And the ah eventual idea for the grid is to, you know, kind of make the entire demand curve flat. You need to understand why they want to do this, right? And are they really making money out of all of this fancy stuff that is that we are really talking of? They are because, and you know, power plant is like an open tap or a river.
00:47:44
Speaker
okay hi Constant flow of energy. it Constant flow, right? You can't just switch it off and on like, you know, as a gas tub or something. So if you have a bucket underneath it, you are collecting it. That is your load which is consuming it.
00:47:57
Speaker
Or ah if you're not, then the bucket gets full and then it just overflows. right So you put all that energy into the earth. Like, you know, seriously, you just put it into the earth. They literally let energy get wasted if there is not enough consumption. I mean, it doesn't go into a batteries or something like that.
00:48:14
Speaker
that is where i think bs is really stepping up so that they store it but again you know how much would you keep on building bs's when you already have a battery is there a wastage happening today in india because of in insufficient demand for electricity during the low low phase especially at the night times okay And it could be significant double digits in percentage.
00:48:42
Speaker
That's interesting. how You always think that India is energy star, but then at the same time, we are also throwing away energy. That's so interesting. It's like food, right? You know, you say ge some people are not getting to eat food, but not all the time in your house, all food is consumed, right? So you said that ah the OEM's app will have like a white labeled... That's like SaaS, right? That's SaaS, okay.
00:49:08
Speaker
So SAS could be a licensed fully licensed model where you could we could build for OEM or large operator, their own branded system, which they own partially. ah And then we kind of service it on a regular basis. So that's how it could be. So typically, because it's in the early days, they would have a little bit of front ending logos, etc. on their names.
00:49:34
Speaker
And ah when their consumers are using the app to find a nearby charging station, um so does it only show ah the Kazam charging stations or you have the full inventory of the country?
00:49:49
Speaker
um Yeah, so obviously it's a process to add the end entire inventory because we want the inventory to start and stop as well. ah So we we basically have contracts with all the people who have these charge points as assets under them.
00:50:03
Speaker
So we've done this now. I think we have roughly around eighty eighty five percent as we speak right now. Is this a big opportunity to aggregate all charge points? Like say Zomato, Swiggy are essentially just people who aggregated Yeah, but they also make 25-30% on the aggregation as a fees.
00:50:22
Speaker
And I don't think that is the an opportunity that is going to happen here ah yet. and it's It's going to take a lot of time where you have only one or two apps which can really command that kind of you know margins. I think even when Swiggy Zomato started, they would have started with 5% or 3% I don't know. And eventually get to 25% plus.
00:50:45
Speaker
bless And I mean, for that 25%, they provide a lot of services also. so yeah ah So, as of now, for this ah discovery of charge points, you're not monetizing that. Like when you're aggregating charge points.
00:50:58
Speaker
We do get the same. It goes then to the transaction fees. As I told you, for demand generation, we get a transaction fees for it. ah But it's not as significant as the Zomantos and Swiggies of the world. Like currently, as a and as a part of your revenue split, it will be insignificant number.
00:51:16
Speaker
ah If I split because I'm at now, you know, three digit crores, it is very insignificant, I would say right now. It is in crores, but it is not, I would say, significant if it does that.
00:51:28
Speaker
ah What's your total revenue? like ah it Or if you can tell me what percentage of your total revenue is hardware, something like that, just to give me a big picture idea.
00:51:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I think right now we are around 80 plus percent of hardware, right around 15 percent of software and 5 percent on transaction fees. And how do you see this evolving?
00:51:53
Speaker
um I think transaction fees in SaaS, we don't know how the market, but I would club them together because of the nature in which they are. They would tend to almost become 50 percent by close to say 2030, 2031.
00:52:06
Speaker
twenty thirty twenty thirty one ah So this ah transaction and SaaS is the do more a part of your business that... Yes, yes. Okay.
00:52:17
Speaker
ah What all opportunities are there ah besides what we've already discussed? Is there any other... There is. So, for example, there is an opportunity for us to build a AI model, predictive model in terms of maintenance for the charge points. When do you have to change the AC, you know, the air filters... Where when is the you know, SIM card really going to fail for you in terms of the tower? ah What is the electricity pattern in terms of, you know, undercurrent, overcurrent, surges, right? So these are all things that are already there, which we can do. Second, we can also profile consumers, especially the commercial guys in terms of what is their earning and how much can they actually take loans against it and can that be linked for it. Right. So those are again opportunities that are there because we know the electricity part of it. ah We have also got inside the vehicle. So we know the battery health now and in how much cycles have happened. So when you're actually selling the vehicle, we know exactly how many cycles of battery has been used and what should be its residual value, etc. right Those can be used by traders, by insurance partners, etc. in the future.
00:53:33
Speaker
How are you getting data from inside the vehicle? There is a handshake that happens, right? So, which tells... Okay, okay, okay, okay. So, you have the unique ID and therefore you are able to aggregate this that typically Bajaj Sreeveeler, this is what we have seen, something like that you would be able to aggregate.
00:53:51
Speaker
Something like that. And at the same time, I know that this particular person could have done or this particular vehicle could have done so many cycles basis on how it is charging. So you try to kind of match that with the typical profile of charging. And then you are able to say how much is the degradation that has happened.
00:54:09
Speaker
Okay, fascinating. So let me end with the a little bit about, so, you know, there's not your first rodeo, as they say, you were a founder previously. ah What were the lessons from that journey, which helped you scale up uh kazam and you know you this is very clearly a success story three digit crore kind of revenue within i guess about four four five odd years uh you've been fairly capital efficient also you've just raised 20 million i think that's pretty capital efficient uh so you know what made this happen with more than 50 already in the bank
00:54:48
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Amazing. ah So what made this happen? Like, like you know, this very ah ah focused dhanda approach, you know, as opposed to funded startup approach that you have.
00:55:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think dhanda runs in the blood. Okay, so I've seen family businesses being built. I have seen startups being built in my house. So, ah you know, conversation on the dining table have always been around business. key yeah he tea me pesa abi banne So there is this rule of, you know, running a business for at least three years, four years before you actually start seeing profits. Okay. No business. If you're really thinking of scaling our business, you don't really think of making money from day one, then you will never scale. Then you're in that small zone. Right. So I've seen people also talk about how you need to invest, how you need to really think about money and how do you survive on that. ah Second, I've seen business like my dad used to run a book publishing house and stuff. which went really high during the you know to early 2000s and late 90s. And hi I think 2010s and all, it kind of crashed right because of Amazon and people not reading books, etc. So...
00:56:02
Speaker
I've seen that happen. So I've seen failure also in the company in the house. My uncle ran ah and a company called M swipe. ah So which is a compet competitor to Pine Labs in a way, right, much smaller. So I've seen that startup journey. I've seen them also build prism payments. ah at home, very similar kind of models, right, where infrastructure either for ATMs or payments were made, and then the same model of SaaS plus transaction fees in both the categories. And I think we're kind of replicating very similarly on those lines. So, Thoda playbook, you know, kind of comes naturally because of those conversation. It's like, you know as a child, if you have learned music or heard music or you had an instrument, you pick up much faster, right, than what you would. So I think that I would say really helped me maybe get instincts, ah and if nothing else, right. ah Nothing other than, you know, reading about this and actually having a formal education on business administration for this, right. ah The second thing is obviously because I was like if would have asked me 10th grade, you know, what do you want to be?
00:57:12
Speaker
I was clear then ge I want to be an entrepreneur. Right. So first first rodeo in college, I never get ideas. So another guy got an idea. I kind of built on top of it. um Realize that, you know, managing a team is very, very tough, especially as a 22 year old hiring people who are 30, 35 and for them to listen to you. And at that point of time starts were not very cool, like 2014 and all still early days, right? You know, where a young guy is trying to tell another person who's significantly older to him saying that, you know, you should do this. Right. And I think those were very, very tough things. Also, letting go of people who are not really, you know, working for the organization. It's not really about money, but it's also about whether they are a fit, especially in the early days and having those tough conversations back then. Also understanding stop loss. So, you know, sometimes you just get emotional about things and you just keep going, going, going. And I think it's sometimes not necessary, but you need to really draw the line in terms of your stop loss and move to the next one, right? And pivot to the next thing. What was the first venture, which obviously did not succeed, but I'm just wondering what were the reasons why it did not succeed?
00:58:26
Speaker
Okay, the first thing that we we wanted to build low cost furniture in India. Like ah IKEA? IKEA is DIY. See, we realized that India is a princely state.
00:58:36
Speaker
hi um now killla iway We cannot build and do all of these things. So that was clear from day one. So you have to make low cost furniture and then ship it out. uh right and i think like someone like wakefit and all you know kind of did that because they reduced the cost because they had so few skus they built it in mass and they reduced the cost and they kind of did that so we wanted to do that okay but obviously we are not ready to do the investment in capital etc and stuff so it actually started with you know getting interior design work
00:59:11
Speaker
and then pushing furniture. So that's how it it really started. So I used to help get interior designers, help them get make BOQs and estimates in terms of time and cost, etc. for their HNI clients. Then it evolved into a augmented reality platform which could help them even visualize along with this estimates and track the entire project management thing. And then finally it went into a marketplace where you could now get furniture, you could get it contractors, plumbers, everything together. Right. So that was like the entire stack ah that we had built. I think scaled it to almost at that point of time, a million, million and a half ah dollars ah per year. but ah No, raised a little bit of capital angel and stuff like that at that point of time. Did that.
01:00:00
Speaker
Then I would say kind of got acqui-hired, not even like made, sold or anything. Got acqui-hired then. And I moved on very fast. and then i And then everybody wanted me to see scale so that I know exactly what happens ah in terms of the SOPs, etc. And that's where I really ended up building, ah working for large organizations like Pepsi, Kodrej Consumers and stuff like that. Fascinating. ah Before we end, ah tell me about this, ah
01:00:31
Speaker
the ah the UPI alternative you said Nandan Nilekani is? UEI. UEI. Unified Energy Interface and now also rebranded as IES, India Energy Stack. okay and and what does this enable this enables basically interoperability ah so one thing it does is interoperability uh for charge point so as you said aggregation right but because these are all independent stacks that are there built by charge point operators and different different hardwares etc so uei really aims to unify that
01:01:12
Speaker
with these asset classes and allow anyone to start pushing demand. Unify in what sense? Like the the charger format? Not the charger format, the software of it.
01:01:23
Speaker
So um say, for example, I want to charge in HPCL or BPCL or any startup or any of those things. Right. I want all of this to be in a single app like the Zomato, ah like you said. Right. But doing that is extremely tough.
01:01:39
Speaker
ONDC kind of an approach. Yes. So you onboard all the supply onto a single place. Correct. And a single API you use to then do the transactions. So that API can be consumed by anyone. Like it could be a Paytm or a WhatsApp or whichever is your go-to app, right? Or a phone pair or whatever it is. So I think that is what the first use case is. The second use case is the entire energy trading because again now you have control over it. Now a single API from the clearinghouse can be used to place bids and also consume bids. So both these things are are the first first two use cases that are really going live. There are more use cases that are there in terms of standardizing how meter data should be at each location. There are different things that people are really working on because it's going to be a full fledged stack. Right. Like today, how you can even do credit card payments on UPI, you can do mandates, you can do loans, like so many things. So it is going to evolve.
01:02:41
Speaker
But the idea is to digitize energy. So, like, ah you know, NPCI is like this… Nodal body. but Yeah, nodal body, which is helping ensure that UPA actually gets executed because all the people who will execute are all, in a way, like shareholders of NPCI or ah many of them are. Yeah.
01:03:02
Speaker
How is the India Energy Stack or Unified Energy, UEI, Unified Energy Interface? ah How is that? ah So the nodal agency REC.
01:03:16
Speaker
Okay. Renewable Energy Corporation of India. ah Okay. Okay. Okay. It's a public PSU, which also has a little bit of command on all the distribution companies, their buying, etc. And you need such a player to kind of influence policy, help them understand, develop and all of those things. So they are helping build all of these things on the background.
01:03:40
Speaker
So there is actually an executive director who's been appointed specifically to drive IES and stuff. ah Thank you so much for your time, Akshay. I enjoyed our chat. Thank you for coming on the Founder Thesis podcast.
01:03:53
Speaker
Yes, thanks. It was a pleasure.