International Battery Company Raises USD 35 Million In RTP Global-led Round

International Battery Company (IBC)—a lithium-ion cells manufacturer for electric vehicles and plans to set up a factory in Karnataka, has raised USD 35 million. The fundraising session was led by RTP Global.

The round has also seen participation from Beenext, Veda VC along with other strategic Korean and US investors and supply partners.

According to California-based IBC, the funding has enabled the company to make its 50-megawatt (MW) manufacturing facility in South Korea fully operational. It is already shipping batteries to clients in India. With the first factory operational, the company is now looking to build a copy exact facility in Karnataka and make it operational starting 2025.

In June last year, IBC signed a pact with the Karnataka government to set up a manufacturing facility in the state at an investment of INR 8,000 crore.

The company will also look to use the proceeds from the latest funding round to develop manufacturing execution systems, as well as build machine learning and artificial intelligence programmes to increase yields of its products.

Setting Up Stage For Local Manufacturing

Founded in 2022 by Priyadarshi Panda, IBC provides large-sized, lithium-ion batteries for the small-mobility segment including two-wheelers, three wheelers, light commercial vehicles, as well as industrial and farm equipment.

Panda said, “We will continue to raise capital sequentially in line with our milestones. Our first goal now is to get a 2 gigawatt hour (GWh) facility setup first (in Karnataka). And that could be done by 2024 and 2025. Once the two GWh facility is ready, we will then arrange for an additional eight GWh to reach 10 GWh capability by 2028.”

IBC at present has five customers, all in India, to which it is shipping its products commercially, including Ather Energy, Matter, three-wheeler manufacturer Euler Motors, EV charging tech startup Exponent Energy and carmaker Hyundai. According to Panda, the company has a pipeline of another 10 customers that it looks to ship its products, as it builds on its manufacturing capacity.

“One of the biggest reasons for us to participate in the round is because we see that in the next seven to eight years there will be a massive demand-supply gap when it comes to batteries in India. Further, the batteries being supplied are not made for Indian conditions which is a big reason for our thesis,” said Nishit Garg, partner at RTP Global’s Asia investment team.

EV Market In India

India is home to more than 3.5 million EVs, with nearly half of them being electric two-wheelers and less than 10 per cent four-wheelers, while the rest consist of e-rickshaws, three-wheelers and a small number of electric buses, per the data available on the Indian government’s Vahan portal. The numbers are insignificant, as more than 23 million vehicles were sold in the country in 2023 alone.

However, the share of EVs in the market is expected to grow thanks to new regulations and incentives offered to manufacturers. New Delhi aims to limit internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by electrifying 30 per cent of its entire four-wheeler base and 80 per cent of its two- and three-wheeler market by 2030.

Notably, International Battery Company is not alone in building Li-ion battery facilities in India. Companies including the Indian salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, South Korean carmaker Hyundai, Vietnamese EV maker VinFast and Bengaluru-based electric two-wheeler manufacturer Ola Electric have also announced their plans to build EV battery facilities in the country. Similarly, the global EV market has BYD, LG Energy Solution, SK Innovation, and Panasonic, among major companies, in battery manufacturing. Nonetheless, Panda said International Battery Company’s approach of being Li-ion product company makes them different from the competition, as it designs cells keeping in mind the requirements of Indian consumers.