DeCharge

DeCharge is a decentralized electric vehicle (EV) charging network built on Solana that turns individual property owners into infrastructure investors. By tokenizing real-world charging stations on-chain, the project enables anyone—from homeowners to liquidity providers—to co-own and earn from EV charging revenue, while giving drivers access to a growing global network.

The Problem DeCharge Addresses

Electric vehicle adoption is accelerating globally, but charging infrastructure has not kept pace. For every 33 EVs on the road, just one public charger is available—a supply gap that discourages potential EV owners and strains those who already own them. Traditional charging station deployment is expensive, slow, and dominated by large utilities or fleet operators. DeCharge's thesis is that decentralized ownership, bootstrapped by a community of hosts and liquidity providers, can close that gap faster and more efficiently than top-down corporate rollouts.

Core Mechanism: DePINFi

DeCharge operates under what it calls DePINFi—a fusion of Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) and decentralized finance. The model works across three participant types:

Charger Hosts install a DeCharge hardware unit on their property—a home, parking lot, or commercial space. DeCharge handles hardware supply, software connectivity, and network management. Hosts earn a share of charging fees generated from each session on their station, settled on-chain.

Liquidity Providers supply USDC or USDT into station-specific programs on Solana. In return they receive receipt tokens that accrue stablecoin-denominated yield tied to individual station throughput and uptime—meaning yield tracks real-world usage rather than speculation. These positions are designed to be tradable, giving providers an exit path rather than an indefinite lock-up.

EV Drivers locate available chargers through a mobile app, pay for sessions, and earn reward points toward future network incentives.

Each charging station is represented on-chain as a tokenized asset. Revenue streams include direct charging fees from drivers and network spreads from liquidity pools, distributed to hosts and liquidity providers.

Hardware Line-Up

DeCharge manufactures three hardware products targeting distinct segments of the EV market:

• Beast (7.4kW AC): The flagship charger for households, small businesses, and public parking. Compatible with four-wheeled EVs, it is revenue-ready by default and supports community access.
• Mini (3.3kW AC): A compact unit for home users and small businesses, designed for two- and three-wheelers. It carries full network connectivity and earning capability despite its smaller form factor.
• Titan (30-120kW DC, upcoming): A multi-gun DC fast charger targeting highways, malls, and EV logistics hubs. It supports multiple concurrent sessions and is positioned for enterprise deployments.

The Beast has been compared in independent coverage to an "Airbnb of EV charging" for hosts—a deploy-and-earn model that lowers the barrier to becoming an infrastructure operator.

Network Origins and Milestones

DeCharge's origins trace to an autonomous charging prototype for drones and small-scale robotics. The team pivoted to the broader EV opportunity after their prototype placed second in the DePIN track at Solana's Renaissance Hackathon in 2023. The project subsequently won the DePIN category at India Blockchain Week's demo day and joined Colosseum Cohort 1, the inaugural cohort of the Solana-aligned accelerator program linked to the Colosseum hackathon organization.

By December 2024, the network had crossed one million cumulative EV charging minutes. As of late 2025, that figure had grown to over 2.5 million all-time charging minutes across more than 1,500 chargers. In December 2024, DeCharge announced a partnership with GEODNET, a decentralized positioning network, to coordinate infrastructure deployment across India and the United States.

Funding

In March 2025, DeCharge closed a $2.5 million seed round led by Lemniscap, a crypto-native fund with a track record in DePIN and infrastructure projects. Participating investors included Colosseum, Daedalus Angels, EV3 Labs, Echo Fundraiser, and Levitate Labs. Notable angels in the round included Nom (creator of Bonk), Shek (Superteam/Solana), Arnold Lee (co-founder and CEO of Spherelabs), Vibhu Norby (founder of DripHaus), Manan Patel (founder of DeSights AI), and Mathieu Baudet (founder of Linera).

Funds are earmarked for hardware manufacturing scale-up, geographic expansion targeting over 3,000 locations across the US, Europe, the Middle East, and emerging markets, and development of an Energy Marketplace where EV users, businesses, and grid operators can participate in tokenized energy trading.

Token and Incentive Structure

DeCharge's live incentive programs include Genesis Points and ZK Points, designed to reward early contributors ahead of a planned token launch. The network currently supports USDC and USDT payments for charging sessions on Solana. A native CHARGE token is planned to align long-term incentives across hosts, liquidity providers, and drivers. As of mid-2025, specific tokenomics and a firm launch timeline had not been publicly finalized.

Team

Mohan Kuldeep Ponnada, Founder and CEO: A serial entrepreneur recognized as CEO of the Year 2022 by Entrepreneur Middle East. He previously led an urban transport platform to over one million rides within 18 months and scaled an IoT product to 200,000-plus users.

Dr. Prakash Kamaraj, Co-Founder and Head of Blockchain: Seven years of DeepTech experience, with prior work as Lead Web3 Business Technology at Chingari, a social platform, where he built blockchain infrastructure supporting five million users and led fundraising.

Rama Krishna, Co-Founder: Part of the founding team with hardware and deployment background.

The company operates from Hyderabad, India and Singapore.

Fit Within the Solana Ecosystem

DeCharge is among the more tangible DePIN projects in the Solana ecosystem—a category where real-world hardware deployment and verified utilization distinguish serious projects from token-only ventures. By settling payments, distributing yields, and recording ownership on Solana, DeCharge connects a physical, regulated industry to programmable on-chain capital formation. The GEODNET partnership also positions it within an emerging stack of DePIN networks sharing geographic and hardware infrastructure to reduce deployment costs.

The platform is primarily operational in India, with expansion underway in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. It represents a bet that the next wave of EV charging infrastructure will be community-built rather than utility-led—and that Solana provides the settlement layer to make that economically viable at scale.