Our Goal Is To Make Clean Mobility Accessible For Everyone: AMU’s Nehal Gupta

As India accelerates toward sustainable mobility, financing solutions are proving to be the key to wider adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), last-mile commercial vehicles, and UAVs. Nehal Gupta, Founder and Managing Director of Accelerated Money For U (AMU), is at the forefront of this transition, offering inclusion-focused financial products that combine leasing, loans, and lifecycle services.

In this interview, she shares insights on how policy, technology, and business models are converging to shape India’s EV and UAV markets, the role of OEM partnerships, and how AMU is helping underserved fleet operators and MSMEs scale sustainably.

AMU works across EVs, commercial vehicles, and UAVs. How is this sector converging now that hybrid models and green-hydrogen vehicles are also in the market?
Three key sectors are undergoing change: policy, business models, and technology. Many UAVs, last-mile commercial vehicles, and e-two-wheelers increasingly use battery and telematics technology, such as IoT and cloud analytics. This facilitates financing, maintenance, and risk evaluation for various automobiles. Lifecycle models that facilitate asset recovery and underwriting for any kind of vehicle, including as leasing, BaaS, and subscriptions, are also being adopted by fleet operators and financiers. The development of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), hybrids, and hydrogen pilots is also being accelerated by regulations that support local manufacturing and electrification. As car technology improves, this pushes lenders and OEMs to create flexible solutions.

What is the main forte of AMU (EVs only)?
Our core strength is productizing inclusion-first EV finance for the mass and fleet segments. We combine flexible leasing and income-based financing with lifecycle services—retrofitting, telematics-backed monitoring, and asset recovery—so operators (E-rickshaw fleets, two/three-wheel cargo operators, and last-mile fleets) can scale without crippling upfront capital. We also deploy alternative credit signals and technology to underwrite customers that traditional lenders typically exclude.

Is there a different financing model for EVs and UAVs, as it includes subsidies?
For EVs, we use a mix of product structures: retail loans, operating leases, battery-as-a-service (BaaS), and mileage/usage-linked repayment for commercial customers. Telematics data lets us move from static EMIs to dynamic, usage-sensitive pricing and proactive maintenance interventions. For UAVs (enterprise use), the model is typically asset financing or lease-to-own for companies and co-ops; for on-demand logistics and precision agriculture, we also offer subscription or pay-per-flight models bundled with insurance, payload services and operator training—that reduces entry barriers for enterprises that need capability but not ownership up front.

Which service among leasing, loans, asset recovery, and retrofitting is in demand today?
We are seeing strong demand for fleet financing and leasing—especially for last-mile logistics, e-rickshaws, and two/three-wheeler fleets. Fleets prefer OPEX models (leasing/subscription) that preserve working capital and provide predictable operating costs. Retrofitting and asset recovery are fast followers: as vehicles turn over, fleet owners demand structured remarketing, battery replacement/retrofitting and resale support—services we bundle to maintain residual values and reduce systemic risk.

What is the role of technology in risk assessment and customer experience?
Technology is foundational. For risk assessment, we use telematics, battery diagnostics, and alternative-data ML models to assess behaviour, battery health, and cash-flow signals—this materially lowers default risk and lets us price more competitively for thin-bureau customers. From estimate to repossession or buyback, the customer experience is seamless thanks to digital onboarding, app-led servicing, real-time alerts, and integrated payments. In short, technology makes maintenance a retention lever rather than a cost centre and lessens information asymmetry.

How does a partnership with OEMs help financial companies? How are your partnerships with OEMs like Mahindra, Tata, Bajaj, and Altigreen influencing AMU’s product pipeline?
OEM partnerships are strategic because they provide dealer-network reach, co-branded financing programmes that speed up distribution in Tier-2/3 markets, and product-level visibility (telematics, warranty, and specs). Our bundled offers—financing + warranty + maintenance + telematics—that increase asset uptime and lower credit loss are also facilitated by our tight collaboration with OEMs.. In short, OEM relationships shorten go-to-market cycles and make our underwriting more data-driven.

Financing plays a pivotal role in accelerating EV adoption. How do you see AMU contributing to India’s sustainable mobility transition?
Financing is the single largest lever to convert intent into adoption. By lowering upfront costs through leasing and income-based models, providing lifecycle services, and enabling BaaS, we reduce the total cost of ownership and operational uncertainty. AMU focuses on underserved fleet operators and MSMEs—when these operators electrify, the emissions impact compounds because they run high mileages. So our contribution is both financial (credit access) and structural (support services, OEM partnerships, and technology-enabled underwriting) that together speed adoption at scale.

How many people are inclined towards EVs? Can you give some numbers of loans you have issued in the last two years, and how much increase you are expecting in the coming years? 
Market context first: EV sales and fleet electrification in India are on a steep upward curve, with multiple industry reports forecasting strong growth in vehicle and drone markets over the next five years. At AMU, we’ve financed 10,000+ vehicles across 15 states and supported 250+ MSMEs and 5,000+ individuals—numbers that reflect both retail and fleet disbursements. We’ve recorded multi-fold revenue growth recently and are actively raising capital to scale to financing 100,000+ EVs over the next 24–36 months as demand and supply mature.

What role do you see UAV financing playing in areas like logistics, agriculture and surveillance in the coming years?
UAV financing will be a critical enabler for enterprise adoption. For agriculture, financed drone fleets will allow co-ops and large farms to access precision spraying and monitoring without heavy CAPEX. In logistics, drones will be leased to solve last-mile gaps in remote geographies. For surveillance and inspection (infrastructure, utilities, and defense adjacencies), leasing and managed-service models will let agencies scale quickly without procurement delays. The Indian drone market is expected to grow at a rapid rate, according to market predictions, which confirms that financiers have a viable chance.

What challenges do you foresee in EV financing over the next few years, and how are you getting ready for them? What opportunities lie ahead?
Opportunities can be expansion of BaaS, embedded finance at charging points, securitisation of EV loan pools, and financing for second-life batteries and retrofits. Gaps: standardised battery valuation norms, secondary-market liquidity, and paucity of long-term telematics/battery datasets for long-term underwriting. How AMU prepares: we’re productizing lifecycle services (retrofitting, asset recovery), building telemetry-first underwriting models, deepening OEM partnerships to manage supply/resale value, and exploring institutional funding and securitisation to scale. These moves are designed to close the data, liquidity, and product gaps we see ahead.