Techno-startup BLive was founded with a vision to “Accelerate Adoption of EVs for a Sustainable Future” by friends Sandeep Mukherjee and Samarth Kholkar. The startup with the aim of revolutionizing the drive of adapting EV bikes in India is bringing together a collection of brands that offer e-mobility options to the public.
BLive is a platform that brings together the public an experience to adopt sustainable electric mobility solutions such as e-bikes, cars, and autos. It is India’s digital-first multi-brand EV platform that offers a wide range of EV products and services to its customers. The story of BLive started in early 2018 when two friends Samarth Kholkar and Sandeep Mukherjee, living in remote geographies decided to come together to find an effective sustainable tourism solution based out of Goa. With Sandeep’s exposure to Electric Vehicles in Europe and Samarth’s knowledge of the marketing field, they launched ‘India’s first EV Tourism initiative’- BLive. Today the duo is accelerating the adoption of EVs in almost all sectors of society.
The biggest aperture in the adoption of EVs is the lack of experience and understanding of EVs amongst consumers. BLive was commenced with the aim of solving this problem with three offerings-BLive EV Tours which offer experiential tours on Ebikes to create awareness and experience of EVs. The BLive Ebike tours have completed over 13,000 tours across 15 cities in partnership with top hotel chains like IHCL, Club Mahindra, and others.
The BLive EV store is an omnichannel EV store with top brands of EVs, a community of EV experts, and great deals- all on one platform. The BLive store launched towards the end of 2020, is on a steady growth path and is sold to customers across 46 cities. They are all set to soon launch their experiential multi-brand stores across India. They also provide BLive B2B Solutions which helps businesses to switch to EV for their operations with easy financing options, expertise, and best-in-class product offerings.
The Friends who lead this Venture
Samarth Kholkar is the CEO & Co-Founder of BLive where he oversees the growth, customer experience, and technology practices. The need to introduce sustainable tourism in Goa inspired Samarth to co-found BLive along with his partner Sandeep Mukherjee.
Samarth, a dynamic business strategist and an astute leader with 15 years of experience, is originally from Goa. Prior to founding BLive, Samarth was the CEO of Mojo Hospitality Private Limited and led a chain of F&B outlets across India. He has worked across verticals like IT, Hospitality, and currently, the EV segment, which is the most talked about segment across the world right now. His deep expertise lies in sales, start-ups, electric vehicles, and the e-commerce business. He has a Bachelor of Engineering from Savitribai Phule Pune University and an MBA from Goa Institute of Management.
Sandeep Mukherjee the Co-founder of BLive is the Chief Operating Officer and leads Business Planning, Brand Strategy, and Strategic Partnerships at BLive. Sandeep has always believed that the EV market is poised toward bringing about the next revolution in the mobility industry.
He is an alumnus of Symbiosis Business School and has over 13 years of marketing experience with Nokia, Microsoft, and SABMiller. Sandeep who’s a native of Jamshedpur has expertise in retail, start-ups, tourism, electric vehicles, and technology. When Sandeep was working in Finland, he accumulated exposure and understanding of EVs which inspired him to create an organization that will drive the adoption of EVs in India, consequently, erasing the problems of fuels, and dependency on fossil fuels, with Samarth. He is also a green ambassador and believes that sustainable practices and green mobility is the future we should aim for.
Sandeep and Samarth have been friends for the last 10 to 15 years and took it to a strong and affirmative business. What started with conversations over beers in the evenings in Goa, led Sandeep and Samarth to establish Blive with the aim of bringing a revolution in sustainable mobility across the nation.
Samarth in an exclusive interaction with Machine Maker said, “We had both realized that EV is a platform that will be widely utilized in the country in the upcoming years. Both of us began the search for something which would catalyze that endeavour. We were urged, by our intuitions, to start this entire initiative. We have come together contributing our individual experiences and carved this journey which has come together very beautifully. We went ahead to register Blive in Goa in a 20-year contract with the Government and successfully started operations towards the end of 2018.”
Sandeep Mukherjee during the same interaction explained how “B-Live is driving adoption of EVs in India for a greener and cleaner India with the purpose of driving sustainability into vehicles. It is our dream to see an EV in every home to cope with the deteriorating situation of pollution and congestion problems along with the dependence on fossil fuels which is very precarious. The arousal of a need to have alternative energy, sustainable solution or fuel which is what Blive is working towards.”
Three A’s: Awareness, Accessibility, and Affordability
The initial stage of starting this business led Sandeep and Samarth to find and focus on three major problems – Awareness, Accessibility, and Affordabilitys. They both realized these three ‘A’s required immediate attention. To begin with, awareness, when the business came about and even in the present there isn’t a single platform that provided potential buyers with convincing information about EVs. Accessibility is the second obstacle, any potential customer would come across to find solutions to the concerns of where a customer can buy an EV, and will it have easy access like petrol vehicles do. The last was the affordance problem which meant the availability of loans, exchanges, re-sells, subscriptions, leases, and others.
To address these 3 buckets of concerns BLive was established as a versatile platform to create awareness through its experts at the stores and online website. At the present, they have stores across the nation to solve the accessibility problem. These stores are also readily available online through their portal to order and buy EVs online. Though BLive started in Goa, it has now moved to 9 states in 15 different locations with the aim of making it an easy option for daily commutes.
They have assembled India’s first market for EVs and are basically the Myntra of EVs. In their EV stores, an EV expert guides the inquiry by offering an online as well as an in-person demo with the option of being able to purchase an EV vehicle online. The testing experience, along with the former gives a customer a handhold right from discovery to purchase.
Enlarging the EV revolution
BLive is convincing enterprises to convert their fleet riders to EV vehicles. A few of their potential client companies that provide EVs are Hero-Electric, Kinetic Green, Hero-Electro, and Bolt-charging. They have also involved finance companies trying to create an ecosystem of the EV market.
They have been working closely with the Government of Goa and moving them to ownership of EVs. They are trying to bond with other governments for tie-ups, but bridging this gap is a long-time process, which will eventually happen as the organization succeeds. They have the intent to create a Public-Private-Partnership. They are one of the finalists of the Indian National Start-up Awards where they got to share a conversational space with Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi.
They sell around 2 crores of 2-wheelers every year, and 2 lakh EVs, which denotes the huge growth potential for the EV revolution. They are also trying to encourage and support internal mobility which is adopted by colleges, and companies; the Green Campus Program in which educational institutes want to employ Electric cycles on their campuses, and the Green Corporate Program which offers special schemes and special offers for employees who adopt electric bikes.
“The new concept of the solar power charging station is going to completely change the energy resources scenario. India is at the cusp of something very beautiful in electric mobility. All smart cities are adopting EV buses. It is everyone’s responsibility to adopt green practices. We’ll soon announce our tie-up with one of the biggest universities in Bangalore and also work with top-tier colleges across India. Our stores work on a franchise format, our target audience is young people who are going to drive this revolution ahead of time”, concludes Samarth.
