Pluto Mobility's $2M seed bets on purpose-built EVs for last-mile delivery

Pluto Mobility closed a $2 million seed round led by Version One Ventures in February 2026, with participation from Grad Capital and angel investors including executives from Delhivery, OfBusiness, and Pixxel. The round marks the first institutional capital for the startup, founded in 2024 by Akshat Bhatia and Himanshu Panda. Pluto engineers scooter-sized, fully enclosed electric vehicles designed for last-mile delivery, with the ability to carry twice as many orders as a typical electric two-wheeler while maintaining urban manoeuvrability. The company has not yet launched its maiden product and plans to deploy pilot fleets across key urban markets later in 2026.

The round signals investor conviction in the last-mile delivery hardware category at a moment when India’s gig workforce faces mounting pressure and regulatory scrutiny. The country’s delivery market is projected to reach $300.5 billion by 2030, growing at a 6.7% compound annual rate from 2024, while the gig and delivery workforce is estimated at 1.2 crore workers in FY25 and expected to reach 2.35 crore by 2030. However, delivery workers have conducted multiple strikes throughout 2025 flagging accident risks and unsustainable delivery targets, and policy intervention has begun—with major platforms scaling back 10-minute delivery branding following government action in January 2026. Pluto’s thesis appears to centre on the premise that purpose-built vehicles can address both logistics efficiency and driver safety in ecommerce and quick-commerce use cases.

The open question is whether a pre-launch hardware startup can achieve the manufacturing scale and unit economics required to compete in a capital-intensive last-mile market dominated by incumbent operators and informal gig networks. Worth watching whether Pluto’s pilot deployments in 2026 demonstrate sufficient demand from delivery platforms to justify further scaling, and whether the fully enclosed design—marketed as weather protection—resonates with delivery partners or becomes a liability in humid climates. Also unresolved: the pricing model relative to existing two-wheelers, and whether regulatory frameworks governing gig worker classification will evolve in ways that make purpose-built vehicles more or less attractive to fleet operators.