Ka Enterprises, owned by Bollywood’ highest-paid actress Deepika Padukone, has infused funds in an electric taxi startup Blu Smart as part of an angel round of $3 million (approx ₹21 crore). Besides, other investors, who participated in the angel round of Blu Smart were JITO Angel Network, Sanjiv Bajaj, managing director at Bajaj Capital and Rajat Gupta, former managing director of McKinsey, reported Mint.
While, apart from Blu Smart, Padukone has been an active investor in startups, with bets on companies such as yogurt-maker Epigamia and space technology startup Bellatrix Aerospace.
Also, Blu Smart has appointed, Centrum Capital as advisor for the second round of capital raising.
“Blu Smart is focused on superior mobility experience for its customers, cost savings, passenger safety and security. Our new innovative urban mobility offering gives customers personal freedom to travel whenever they want without the hassles of car ownership and stress of finding parking spots in densely populated urban areas,” said Punit K Goyal, Cofounder, Blu Smart.
Blu Smart was started by Puneet Singh Jaggi, Anmol Singh Jaggi and Punit K Goyal in 2018. The startup claims to have served over 20,000 customers since its launch in just 3 months in Delhi NCR region.
Blu Smart is building an all electric ecosystem with strategic partnerships across automotive, infrastructure and energy companies and plans to on–board 15,000 electric cars, 2500 chargers on its all electric ride sharing platform by 2021 while creating job opportunities for drivers.
Adding on, in August this year, Blu Smart secured $2.2 million in seed funding from JITO Angel Network and a clutch of investors.
Besides Blu Smart, other players in the similar industry include Ola Electric, Okinawa, Revolt, Ather Energy, Yulu, and among others.