Catalyzing Capital for India’s EV Transition: The EM-PACT Journey
India’s electric mobility market has entered a decisive growth phase
In FY 2024–25, the country recorded sales of over 2.04 million EVs, pushing EV penetration to 7.8% of total annual auto sales. Charging infrastructure also deepened its presence, with improving network density across urban centres and key logistics corridors.
This market shift has been reinforced by a stable and forward-looking policy architecture. While the FAME scheme supported large-scale adoption across personal mobility, the recent PM E-DRIVE scheme has expanded incentives to e-trucks and e-buses, thus enabling a broader electrification push. On the supply side, Production Linked Incentive schemes for Auto and ACC Battery have strengthened domestic manufacturing for EV components, enhancing the sector's cost competitiveness and investment certainty.
These policy signals have catalysed a wave of investor confidence and entrepreneurial activity
A new generation of e-mobility enterprises has emerged across the EV value chain ranging from leasing, commercial-fleet logistics, charging-station developers, second-life battery ventures, and integrated clean-mobility service providers. These enterprises collectively represent the next wave of scalable climate and livelihood solutions for India. In FY 2024–25 alone, India’s e-mobility sector raised over US $2.1 billion across more than 100 rounds, more than double the previous year’s deployment.
As this ecosystem expands, there is significant potential to further deepen investor engagement
Electric mobility inherently delivers measurable impact such as reduced tailpipe emissions, improved urban air quality, and livelihood creation through fleet operations and service-based roles. This makes it naturally relevant for investors focused on sustainability outcomes. However, connecting capital to high-potential enterprises requires structured intermediation.
Many early-growth enterprises are still evolving how they articulate the impact, communicate business maturity, or present structured pathways for scale. Greater visibility, standardised information flows, and clearer investment narratives can help investors evaluate opportunities more confidently and identify differentiated solutions. Strengthening this alignment represents an important opportunity to accelerate deployment at scale.
EM-PACT (E-Mobility Platform for Advancing Capital and Technology) was designed to address this opportunity
Launched in March 2025 by the Impact Investors Council and KPMG, EM-PACT is an impact investment facilitation platform designed to connect investors with high-potential opportunities in the e-mobility space. The aim was to provide structured discovery, clearer articulation of value propositions, and a more transparent interface between innovative enterprises and impact-focused capital.
.jpg)
Saurabh Gupta, Partner, KPMG
“The genesis of EM-PACT lay in recognizing a financing gap within India’s rapidly expanding e-mobility landscape. We saw early-stage innovation emerging at pace, but access to capital was uneven. The platform was therefore designed not just to unlock funding opportunities, but to create a shared learning experience where investors deepen their understanding of emerging EV models, and enterprises sharpen their articulation of readiness. The success of this cohort reinforces the value of structured engagement”
Following its launch, EM-PACT transitioned quickly into implementation. The platform invited applications from early-growth and scale-stage e-mobility enterprises through an open call. A total of 48 enterprises applied to join, spanning a diverse range of operating models across the value chain. Approximately 70% of the enterprises were between seed and pre-Series A stage, highlighting active early-stage innovation and catalytic capital need. Thirteen enterprises were preparing to raise institutional capital for the first time whereas an additional set had raised below USD 500,000 in earlier rounds and were exploring expansion. The composition provided investors with a broad window into the next wave of EV businesses shaping the sector.
.png)
.jpg)
Investor participation mirrored this depth. The platform onboarded 21 impact-aligned and climate-focused investors, representing a diverse spread from seed investors backing early-stage climate entrepreneurship to funds investing in commercially scaled sustainability businesses. The diversity of these investors meant that enterprises at different levels of maturity – from those preparing for their first institutional raise to those expanding beyond previous funding cycles – had access to relevant pools of capital and thematic alignment.
EM-PACT facilitated 81 curated investor-enterprise conversations
To ensure structured investor engagement, the platform initiated an evaluation and matchmaking process. All applications were first validated and classified into major e-mobility verticals and shared with participating investors. This resulted in 37 enterprises being shortlisted for deeper evaluation by 11 different investors – thus forming the foundation for curated interactions.
The platform then facilitated structured one-on-one discussions between shortlisted enterprises and interested investors. These were focused sessions, where enterprises presented their proposition and investors engaged on key aspects such as market maturity, operating economics, customer traction, product roadmap, and milestones achieved. 81 such curated sessions were facilitated, enabling founders to communicate their business narrative in a structured environment, and giving investors a consistent, comparable view of emerging opportunities.
What distinguished this process was not just the introductions, but the follow-through. Post each session, investors evaluated opportunities and provided feedback where clarity or strengthening would support the capital-raising effort. This feedback mechanism has emerged as one of the distinctive features of the platform, helping enterprises better prepare for subsequent conversations and improve the maturity of their investment articulation. This structured approach translated into tangible benefits for both sides, as reflected in the direct feedback received from participating investors and enterprises.
Testimonials:
“The EMPACT programme is a great bridge between an area that needs more funding, and investors who are looking for high quality companies here. All the founders we spoke to showed great insight, passion and ability to execute their vision”
- Aiconic Capital
“The startup curation was excellent – detailed descriptions allowed us to quickly assess founder models and thesis fit before engaging. The team's facilitation was a strong point: they coordinated calls efficiently and their presence during conversations helped ensure productive discussions”
- Acumen
“The EM-PACT programme provided us with significant visibility into the broader EV startup ecosystem, and what impressed us most was the way the team curated the process end-to-end — from refining the investor pitch to sharing investor feedback with complete transparency”
- Vaidyuthi Mobility
“The engagement with IIC has been extremely valuable for LinkMiles Mobility. Their cohort selection process and the investor meetings helped us sharpen our pitch and connect with highly relevant funds. We appreciate the genuine focus on helping impact-driven start-ups scale”
- LinkMiles Mobility
“The EM-PACT team was very proactive in arranging our one-to-one discussions and business presentations with the investors and helping us with the assessment inputs. We found this program very helpful in getting our work evaluated by the leading investors and getting their valuable inputs on improvements we can bring in our business”
- Eidikos Business Enterprises
The platform created visibility into significant investment opportunities
Across the shortlisted cohort, enterprises articulated significant funding requirements for their next phase of growth. Through focused discussions, EM-PACT enabled structured access to this opportunity, bringing investor visibility to demand that would otherwise have remained fragmented or sequential. In doing so, the platform effectively created a ready-to-assess pipeline rather than isolated deal conversations. In fact, 11 conversations between investors and start-ups have proceeded towards deeper engagement in form of either initiating due diligence, facility visits to understand ground level operations or in-person meetings to explore partnerships.
Beyond the capital opportunity, the programme generated several outcomes:
Perhaps the most meaningful outcome was demonstrated efficiency. EM-PACT showed that capital engagement becomes significantly more effective when evaluation happens through a structured and time-bound intermediation layer, rather than through informal bilateral dialogues. The experience underscored that when visibility, articulation, and comparability are aligned, investor confidence increases and decision cycles shorten, irrespective of the stage of enterprise maturity.
As the ecosystem evolves, platforms like EM-PACT can play a greater role in shaping readiness and shared knowledge
Looking ahead, the value of structured platforms like EM-PACT can extend beyond investment facilitation alone. Similar formats can be adapted across adjacent sustainability domains such as distributed renewable energy, agricultural value-chain transitions, circular economy solutions, and climate resilience models. There is also potential to broaden what such a platform delivers: incorporating capacity-building modules for enterprise readiness, knowledge series on evolving policies and economics, thematic convenings that bring ecosystem actors together, or collaborative research outputs that improve visibility into emerging climate market opportunities.
In that sense, EM-PACT represents not just a one-time programme, but a demonstration of how structured convening can accelerate climate-aligned innovation. The approach involving curated discovery, multi-investor dialogue, and clarity-building for early-stage enterprises holds relevance beyond e-mobility. As the climate and impact ecosystem expands, such platform-based models can play a catalytic role in enabling readiness and strengthening the pathway from opportunity to scale.
