Magna increases bet on battery swapping in India with $35M for Yuma

Yuma operates its battery-swapping network across 18 Indian cities, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and the Delhi region, as well as Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, Coimbatore, Kochi, and Kolkata. With the fresh capital, the firm plans to expand into Chennai and Pune in the coming quarters while adding more stations in cities where it already operates.

India will remain Yuma’s focus for at least the next 12 to 18 months. However, Subramanian told TechCrunch that the firm plans to take the model overseas as part of its longer-term roadmap. Southeast Asian markets including Vietnam and Thailand, as well as parts of Africa, could be attractive because of their large two-wheeler markets, he said, though Yuma has yet to begin discussions about entering them.

Unlike operators that simply run swapping networks, Yuma designs and manufactures its own battery packs and charging units. The firm makes battery packs at its facility in Chennai and charging units in Bengaluru, giving it control over both the hardware and the network that manages them.