EVs certainly is a top priority for the TN government owing to an established and mature electronics and automotive ecosystem already being in place in the State. In fact, Ramanathan said that the EV opportunity is a unique one as it is a sector that is seeing a lot of activity from startups.
“There is a very unique connect in these cases between the startups, MSMEs and large scale industries. EVs is one area we are focusing on,” he said.
Only last month, StartupTN along with investment promotion agency Guidance and other stakeholders launched the Automotive, Electric Vehicle (EV) and Smart Mobility Forum last month. The forum is the first such strategic fora to bring together sectoral startups, innovators, corporates, experts, industry bodies, aspirants, incubators, mentors, investors, government departments and other stakeholders for focused collaborations to make Tamil Nadu a leader in the sector.
Ramanathan also spoke about how the Government of Tamil Nadu is earmarking space for startups that are into manufacturing like EVs, robotics, IoT and the like to establish “Startup Manufacturing Centres” as a plug-and-play facility to enable them to commence production.
V Vishnu, MD and CEO of Guidance explained that there were four pillars to the EV ecosystem – OEMs, component manufacturers, the battery ecosystem and circularity which refers to battery recycling and the like.
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“There is potential for investment and growth in all these four verticals,” Vishnu said. “The OEMs which are the large auto companies looking to diversify into EVs as well as the new-age startups like Ola and Ather are primarily concentrated in the Hosur-Chennai belt. EV component manufacturing is coming up in a big way and there is potential to build a whole new vendor ecosystem for which startups can play a major role.”Not just this, he said the TN government was looking closely at the battery manufacturing and circularity aspects as well. Interestingly, Vishnu mentioned that EV commitments in Tamil Nadu have touched around Rs 40,000 crores in the last three years.
ET had reported on Saturday that Industries Minister TRB Rajaa had said that of all the EV two wheelers that are sold in India, 68% are manufactured in Tamil Nadu. He spoke extensively about how Tamil Nadu is the EV capital of India.
“EV we are already big and are growing exponentially,” he said. “We have (about) 450 charging stations in Tamil Nadu (and 6500 in India) (as of March 2023) but by 2030 (India) is expected to have 1.3 million charging stations. It is such a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs and MSMEs.”
He added that there is also a massive opportunity in battery recycling which he said could grow to 128 GWh by 2030. “We need to work on the entire EV ecosystem as one family,” Rajaa said.
The Tamil Nadu Startup Thiruvizha 2023 was a two-day convention held in Coimbatore that featured more than 50 speakers comprising startup ecosystem leaders, subject matter experts, heads of state startup missions in India and government officials. There will also be an expo which will showcase more than 450 stalls and will also have pitching sessions where startups can pitch before angel investors and venture capital funds for investment. Provisions have also been made to facilitate one-on-one interactions between startups, investors and other stakeholders.
“StartupTN envisages scaling Startups from across sectors into successful employment generators and emerge as pillars of Tamil Nadu’s economy,” Ramanathan said. “It is also giving a push for open innovation by broadly classifying startups into 30 sectors and joining hands with government departments, PSUs and corporates, collecting their problem statements and inviting startups to fix the same. This is paving the way for collaborations that benefit both parties.”
(The author was in Coimbatore at the invitation of StartupTN)