Introducing Naxatra Labs

When we as a fund look at climate tech investments, we’ve primarily invested in solutions around water, integrated farming, alternative green energy solutions like hydrogen and solar etc.

For various reasons, we have broadly stayed away from the EV and ancillary space. When we met Naxatra Labs, and learned more about what they were building (axial flux motors for EVs), we were immediately intrigued. 

Something we look around for is the deflationary nature of any technology; which allows time and capital to be poured into something else which should be the driving force of a lot of the innovation that goes around. Here’s a link to explain in detail about what we mean above. 
 
When we did a deeper dive into this technology, we realised that there is a compounding effect in axial motors.  

The motor itself takes much less space and weight, requiring smaller battery packs, which in turn leads to smaller braking systems.

This was quite an interesting idea, and we felt this was something we should definitely support. 

Here is what the founders of Naxatra Labs, Abhilash, Arnav and Piyush have to say about their startup journey: 

At Naxatra Labs, we make efficient and compact radial and axial flux motors for electric vehicles, agriculture and power tools. We work with OEMs to understand their requirements from vehicle perspective like speed, torque, top speed and others then build them a customised product that would be fit for the vehicles. We allow OEMs to focus on vehicle building and leave the drivetrain to us. We have spent 4+ years in tech development, filed 5 patents (one granted) and currently setting up an assembly line in Ahmedabad.

Currently in the EV market, most of the motor companies are building motors through import of products or tech. Subcomponents are getting imported and only assembly is being done. In other cases, companies are importing tech and then manufacturing motors in India. Indian conditions are different in weather, road conditions and also in driving style. Unless the product is built ground up, it is prone to fail. At Naxatra, our focus is to build application specific products. We have spent over 4 years in R&D and tech development of products. This tech stack helps us to customise solutions as per the use cases.

But here’s the catch, we didn’t start with building motors.

It was March 2020, we wanted to build something. It was the 2nd wave of COVID and we found a problem statement. The government was using drones to spill chemicals in affected areas. We realised they were not flying for a longer span of time. We thought, “Why don’t we build a drone that can fly for 3 hours?” We assembled a team of people and started working on the idea.

  
Hybrid Drone, Hybrid Generator, Naxatra’s generator POC

While working on a hybrid drone, we got incubated in iCreate, Ahmedabad. We met our mentor Ashish Kanaujia there and after several discussions, we came to the conclusion that we should build a hybrid generator system which can be attached to any drone instead of building a whole drone. We started developing the module.

In the case of drones, every part should be as lightweight as possible, a generator consists of two key components: a driving engine and a generator (essentially a motor working in reverse). We found a light weight engine from a Japanese manufacturer but for the motors, we were finding 4-5Kgs motors. After searching in the market for an effective lightweight motor, Piyush stumbled upon an US based hybrid powertrain company and they were using axial flux motors. That’s the first time we heard the word axial flux motors.

We started our search to source Axial flux motors in 1kW category and we couldn’t find any. Companies were mostly building it for the automotive applications and they were above 10kW. We got stuck at this sourcing bottleneck. We had two options: either we shut down Naxatra or build our own Motors.

We chose the later (obviously ;)). We took a timeline of a week and built a wooden based axial flux motor which was absurd in every technical definition with zip ties holding coils, air gap more than 1 cm but it did rotate. It gave us hope that we can actually build our motors for this hybrid generator.

Arnav started working actively on the technical developments of the motors. While I started looking for effective markets for these motors. We found that EVs could be the bigger opportunity for us and the market was just getting started. FAME subsidies and localisation push made it a right time. We took a pivot to developing Axial flux motors for the electric vehicles.

Axial flux vs Radial flux motors

Motors basically have two components: rotors ie moving part and stator (static part). Based on orientation of stator and rotor: Axial and radial are two topologies that are derived. In case of axial flux motors, the rotor and stator are in disk form and magnetic flux lines are parallel to axis of rotation. In the case of Radial flux motors, the rotor and stator are in cylindrical form and magnetic flux lines are perpendicular to the axis of rotation.

    
Wooden, Polymer, Metallic, Stacked Motor POCs and Final Motor

We started working on various iterations of motors like going from wooden structures to polymer to metal, measuring performance differences with different magnets such as ferrite and neodymium, with different stack configurations (dual rotor, dual stator, single rotor and single stator) and different pole slot configurations. We spent the next two years in the development of technology. We did multiple simulations, fabrication and testing to optimise technology and eventually reached an efficiency of more than 90%.

We developed multiple prototypes till the 10kW power range. The first product we developed was 250 watt axial flux motors for electric cycles. It failed due to higher costs and competitive availability of imported products. We kept our social media presence strong while we were developing the products. We posted the cycle testing video on Linkedin. The video blew up on social media and we got so many enquiries from OEMs. It led to piloting with one of the leading 2 wheeler OEM.

Current EV Motor Variants

We benchmarked various available motors in market against ours. We realised that axial flux motors get their advantage against radial flux motors above 5kW powerrange. We changed our strategy. We built 3 radial flux motors variant for the electric 2 wheelers under 5kW power range. We built axial flux motors variants above the 5kW power range.

Our tech stack also allowed us to look beyond electric vehicles. We are actively working on motors for power tools, agricultural applications, motorboats and drones. We do everything inhouse from tech development to final production of the products which helps us to keep control on quality aspects of the products.

We received multiple government grants like Nidhi Prayas, Meity Tide and startup India seed fund for initial Prototyping. We were lucky enough to find Himanshu (Founder Aspiring Minds) and Mohit Tandon (Founder Delhivery) at the right time of our journey. They helped us in strategy that eventually accelerated our journey. 
 
With the current round, we were able to bring a mix of investors whose backing not just validates our efforts but also gives Naxatra an unmatched strength. In true sense, we did realise the real meanings of angel investors and seed round. We were lucky enough to find the angels who came at right time to bring right resources which we were lacking. In the seed round, we do see an opportunity to grow our little ideas into building a self sustaining india led global drivetrain company.