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Episode 69 · Enterprise · 26 min

The layer the EV industry forgot to count

Everyone lists the electric-vehicle industry the same way — carmakers, power utilities, networking companies — and stops before the software. Numocity built the layer that connects them, reached 60-plus customers including two of India's largest companies, and was bought outright by ABB two and a half years after its first institutional cheque. The founders' sharper claim: India's charging stations will be unmanned, and unmanned means the product was never the box on the wall.

Mobility & EV Venture capital Product strategy

Ravi and Siddharth

Co-founders, Numocity · with Vishal Krishna

25:43

Said in this episode

▶ 18:27

60+

Customers on the platform by the exit

The founders call the customer count a testimony to the product; two of them are described as among India's largest companies, unnamed on air.

▶ 19:54

2.5 yrs

From first institutional cheque to full exit

IdeaSpring invested in January 2020 and exited to an international acquirer in May 2022 — a complete exit for the investors, with the founders staying on.

▶ 22:20

$100B

Quoted global charging-infrastructure opportunity

One of several estimates the founders say they get from different market studies; India's relevant slice was given loosely as ten to twenty billion, and the captions garble the unit on the lower figure.

▶ 11:20

2017

The year the vision picture was drawn

The founders say they still use the same picture to explain what the company does, and that they never changed the vision because they understood what it meant.

▶ 11:49

Elements the platform has to connect

Supply the energy, transact the energy, and ensure the energy is consumed so battery life is extended — the founders' entire framing of energy as a service.

The brief

The argument in sixty seconds

The founders' claim is that everybody enumerates the electric-vehicle industry wrong. Automotive companies, power utilities, networking companies — and then, they say, we forget the software and the data companies, the layer that has to connect all the others so infrastructure can be managed, monetised and operated. Numocity was built into that gap in 2017, off a vision picture the founders insist they are still using unchanged: energy has three pieces — someone supplies it from the grid, someone transacts it through a charger or battery system, and someone has to ensure it is consumed in a way that preserves battery life. The second claim is the harder one. India's charging network will be unmanned. Nobody here has ever filled their own tank, and now every station will ask them to, which makes user experience and remote equipment management the product rather than the box on the wall. Around that sit the frictions both founders already lived through in telecom: GB/T, CCS and CHAdeMO fighting the way mobile standards once did, four-wheelers standardised because global OEMs amortise R&D across markets while two-wheelers are still pre-standard, and the old chicken-and-egg of tower versus phone replayed as charger versus car. The investor's claim closes the loop — you can predict the shape of a policy-driven market but not its clock, so you underwrite the team and wait. IdeaSpring wrote its cheque in January 2020, ABB came in small as a strategic investor and spent two years watching the company operate, and in May 2022 bought it outright.

Worth your time if you are

Founders building software on top of somebody else's hardware

EV and charging operators planning for unmanned sites

Investors underwriting markets that policy has to start

Second-time founders beginning later than the median

Anyone preparing a company for cross-border diligence

Episode map

Where the conversation travels

Every block is a chapter, coloured by what it's about. Click any of it to jump straight to that minute on YouTube.

Mobility & EVVenture capitalProduct strategyFounder journeyClimate & energySales, GTM & growth

01Cold open: a full exit to ABB 0:00 Vishal frames the episode around a rare event — a B2B product company out of India getting strategically acquired — while IdeaSpring's Naganand dates the investment to early 2020, credits the founders' depth and passion, and calls the two-and-a-half-year run a fabulous exit for investors and founders alike. 02The player everyone leaves off the list 2:22 Asked what Numocity actually is, the founders describe an industry that counts automotive companies, power utilities and networking companies and then forgets the software and data layer that connects them — and unpack the name itself as new user experiences, mobility and electricity. 03Siemens, Nokia and a 2017 hunch 3:49 Both founders came out of telecom — one starting at Siemens as the mobile phone broke free of licences and waiting lists — and by 2017 they were betting that EVs would only matter once they stopped being a fancy thing for somebody else and became systemic enough for the masses. 04Towers, phones, chargers, cars 5:46 The telecom parallel runs deep: GB/T, CCS and CHAdeMO competing for the same socket the way rival mobile standards once did, and the chicken-and-egg that asked whether the tower or the phone comes first now asking whether to buy the vehicle or build the charger — with the founders placing India a year or two from the private-capital inflection. 05Installing the box is the easy part 8:18 Before software there is a last-mile electricity problem — which licences, which documents, and then the availability and quality of the power itself — and after it a cultural one, because Indian drivers have never filled their own tank and every charging station will be unmanned. 06Why cars standardised and two-wheelers didn't 9:38 Four-wheeler OEMs design one product for several markets and therefore converge on internationally accepted standards, while two-wheelers are early enough that outliers persist — the lightning-versus-USB-C pattern — until regulation eventually drives standardisation. 07Three pieces of energy, one platform 11:05 The product thesis, unchanged since the 2017 picture: somebody gives energy from the grid, somebody transacts it through a charger or battery system, and somebody must ensure it is consumed so that battery life is extended — with the digital platform carrying value end to end as energy as a service. 08Underwriting a market you cannot time 12:50 Naganand explains the bet: networking and telecom gave the fund a template for where EV would end up but not for when, in an industry driven by policy and heavy investment, so the calculated risk rested on founders who had already built comparable systems elsewhere and wanted to build a great company from India. 09The cost of freedom is accountability 14:24 Pressed on the shift from techie to business builder, the answer is that going independent buys the freedom to make your own choices at the price of owning the outcome — plus the discovery that every problem turns out a hundred times harder than the first estimate. 10Accelerators, and an investor who watched 16:12 The Bosch, Microsoft and ABB programmes mattered less as coaching for founders who were, in their own words, a lot greyer than the median, and more as industry connects, access to real problems and technology — while ABB's early minority cheque bought it two years of observing how the company actually executed. 11Sixty customers and a pandemic detour 17:42 A year of nobody travelling threatened a company whose fortunes track the mobility ecosystem, but climate policy pushed back harder in India and abroad, and Numocity came out with more than 60 customers and two of India's largest companies signed — proof to ABB that the product deploys in the field beyond ABB's own hardware. 12Did anyone actually make money? 19:36 Vishal asks the question interviewers usually skip: the fund entered in January 2020 and took a complete exit in May 2022, the founders took a partial outcome and stayed on, and their stated reward is validation — a world-leading company buying technology built here — plus a three-to-four-year mandate to expand internationally. 13A hundred-billion build-out, over a decade 21:40 Market sizing is guesswork, but the quoted global charging-infrastructure opportunity is around $100 billion with a much smaller Indian slice — and because infrastructure keeps getting built rather than arriving at once, the founders' focus shifts to the startup-to-scale-up transition inside a larger group. 14Have your house in order 23:03 The advice for founders hoping to be bought by global acquirers is a great product first and clean books second, because Numocity survived diligences from firms all over the world with nothing anybody could point a finger at, and the money left the country without a hurdle. 15Perseverance, humility, a million cars charging 24:37 The closing round — do what you love, stay prepared to learn, keep an open mind — gives way to Vishal's parting image of a million vehicles plugging in at once and the load-management problem that arrives with them.

Takeaways

Ideas to carry out of this hour

The EV stack has a missing layer, and it is software

Ask anyone to list the electric-vehicle industry and you get automotive companies, power utility companies and networking companies — and then, the founders argue, the list stops. The software and data companies that connect all of those are the ones nobody counts, even though managing, monetising and operating charging infrastructure is a software job. Numocity's whole positioning is that gap: not another player in the ecosystem, but the layer that makes the other players work together.

▶ 2:52 ▶ 3:06 ▶ 3:21

Energy is three pieces, and a platform has to sell all three

The founders reduce the entire sector to three elements: somebody supplies energy, usually the grid; somebody transacts it, through a charger or a battery system; and somebody has to ensure it is consumed properly so battery life is extended. Their claim is that value only shows up when a digital platform carries all three end to end — optimise at the grid, shape the experience at the point of delivery, protect the battery in the vehicle. They say the picture they drew in 2017 to explain this is still the picture they use today.

▶ 11:34 ▶ 11:49 ▶ 12:19

India's charging stations will be unmanned, so software is the product

Installing the box is only one part of the story. First comes the last-mile electricity problem — which licences, which documents, then the availability and quality of the power itself — and after that comes a cultural one. Indians have never filled their own tank; there has always been someone at the pump. EV charging hands the whole transaction to the driver at an unmanned station, which is precisely why user experience and the ability to manage equipment remotely become the business rather than an accessory to it.

▶ 8:38 ▶ 8:52 ▶ 9:08

The EV standards war is the telecom standards war, replayed

GB/T, CCS and CHAdeMO are competing for the same socket the way rival mobile standards competed in the late 1990s, and the founders read the ecosystem through that lens throughout. The chicken-and-egg is identical too: two decades ago nobody wanted a phone without a tower or a tower without phones, and today nobody wants a vehicle without chargers or chargers without vehicles. What broke the deadlock then was private players joining once the government had done its part — and the founders place India a year or two from the same inflection.

▶ 6:32 ▶ 6:47 ▶ 7:02

Four-wheelers standardised because they are built for export

Most cars on the road today were launched by large companies designing for global markets, so their R&D converges on whatever standard is most widely accepted and adoptable — standardisation as a side effect of amortising development across geographies. Two-wheelers are at a much earlier stage with few international brands selling one product in many markets, so outliers persist, in the way a lightning cable persisted against USB-C. The founders expect innovation first and standardisation later, with regulation as the eventual forcing function and India-specific two- and three-wheeler standards still being worked out.

▶ 9:52 ▶ 10:06 ▶ 10:21

You can predict a policy market's shape but not its clock

IdeaSpring's pattern recognition came from networking and telecom, which made it easy to visualise where EV would end up; the unanswerable question was when, because a capital-heavy, policy-driven industry does not take off on a schedule an investor can underwrite. That left three things to bet on instead: a calculated guess that the market would turn within two or three years, founders who had already built comparable systems in a different environment, and the drive to build a great company from India. Timing risk was accepted, not solved.

▶ 13:05 ▶ 13:21 ▶ 13:51

The acquirer had already spent two years watching

ABB was not a banker-brokered buyer that arrived with a term sheet. It ran one of the accelerators Numocity went through, then came on early as a small strategic investor, and as a minority holder spent roughly two years observing how the company cycled through ideas and executed. The signals that mattered by the end were commercial, not architectural: more than 60 customers, and two of India's largest companies signed — proof that the product was stable, deployable and winning outside ABB's own hardware.

▶ 17:26 ▶ 18:27 ▶ 19:21

Clean books are exit infrastructure

The advice offered to founders hoping global companies will buy them is deliberately unglamorous: have a great product, then have your house in order. Numocity went through multiple diligences from firms all over the world and, on the guests' account, nothing came back that anybody could point a finger at — and the proceeds moved out of India without a hurdle, against a reputation for exactly the opposite. IdeaSpring's founding premise was that product companies built in India could be acquired by global ones; this is the fund arguing the premise held.

▶ 23:38 ▶ 24:08 ▶ 24:22

The numbers, drawn

What the episode measures

Every figure below was said on air — timestamps included, caveats kept.

Conversation share

portion of the hour spent on each theme

Mobility & EV24%

Venture capital18%

Product strategy13%

Founder journey12%

Climate & energy10%

Sales, GTM & growth10%

Computed from the chapter map of this episode.

The charging build-out, as sized on air

$ billion

As stated in conversation: quoted studies put the global charging-infrastructure opportunity near $100 billion, with the founders sizing India's relevant share loosely at ten to twenty billion — upper bound shown, and the captions garble the unit on the lower figure. The founders stress the number is spread across a decade of build-out, not available today.▶ 22:20

Worth keeping

Lines that stay

We always look at multiple players — automotive companies, power utility companies, networking companies — and then we forget the software and the data companies, the ones that connect all of these together.

— Numocity co-founder ▶ 3:06

India is never used to a self-serve experience — you never fill it yourself. But in EV charging you are going to do it. Nobody else is going to be there; it's all unmanned stations.

— Numocity co-founder ▶ 9:08

What comes first, the tower or the phone? Very similar scenario now: I want to buy a car, but is there a charging infrastructure? I have a charging infrastructure — should I buy a vehicle?

— Numocity co-founder ▶ 7:02

It was not the money driving us, it was a passion to say: can we do it from here? If a world-leading company is now the acquirer for the technology built here, that's a big validation.

— Numocity co-founder ▶ 20:47

We started IdeaSpring because we believe we can build product companies in India that global companies can acquire — and it has happened.

— Naganand, IdeaSpring Capital ▶ 23:38

Clips that travel

Short on time? Start here

Founders building software on top of somebody else's hardware

The player everyone leaves off the list

The episode's thesis in under two minutes — why the software and data layer is the one nobody counts, and how the company's name encodes it.

2:36 → 4:22 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

EV and charging operators planning for unmanned sites

Towers, phones and the unmanned pump

The competing charging standards, the chicken-and-egg India solved once before in telecom, and the last-mile power and self-serve problems that follow.

6:01 → 9:38 · 4 min ▶ Watch clip

Product leaders defending an unchanged roadmap

Three pieces of energy, one platform

The 2017 vision picture that never changed: supply, transact, consume — and why the value only shows up end to end.

11:05 → 12:50 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

Founders and angels modelling what an exit pays

Did anyone actually make money?

A rare on-air answer about who got what — full exit for the fund, a partial outcome for the founders, and why validation is the part they lead with.

19:36 → 21:40 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

Anyone preparing a company for cross-border diligence

Clean books survive a global diligence

Great product first, house in order second — diligences from firms worldwide, and money leaving India without a hurdle.

23:03 → 24:37 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

Glossary

The jargon, unpacked

Charge point operator (CPO)

The business that owns and runs public charging stations — Numocity's core customer, buying software to manage, monetise and operate the equipment.

CCS, CHAdeMO, GB/T

The rival connector-and-protocol standards for fast charging, named on air as the EV industry's version of the mobile standards that fought for the same space in the late 1990s.

Load management

Deciding how much grid power flows to which charger at which moment, so that a cluster of vehicles plugging in together doesn't overwhelm the local network — the host's closing worry.

Energy as a service

The founders' framing: selling metered, managed delivery of energy across supply, transaction and consumption rather than selling the hardware that delivers it.

Strategic investor

A corporate rather than financial backer, investing partly for product and market insight — ABB's minority stake gave it two years of visibility before it acquired the company outright.

Due diligence

The pre-acquisition audit of books, contracts and technology; the guests argue that surviving it cleanly is what makes a cross-border exit quick and un-dramatic.

Connections

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EP 148 · Enterprise

Full transcript

The whole conversation, searchable

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