Ather Energy Success Story : India’s First EV Brand

Ather Energy – About and How It Works? 

Ather Energy is an Indian electric two-wheeler manufacturer based in Bangalore. This company was founded back in 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain. It was on 23rd February 2016 when the company unveiled its first scooter, the S340, at a technology conference Surge in Bengaluru. Soon, Hero MotoCorp invested Rs 180 crore in a series B round back in October 2016 on Ather. 

Ever since the brand has only grown more and more in the Indian market. Back in December 2019, Ather first signed an MoU with the government of Tamil Nadu to set up a huge 400,000-square-foot manufacturing plant for electrical vehicles in Hosur. Soon in 2020, the company added two new products to their portfolio are Ather 450X and the Ather 450 Plus. 

Ather Energy has a fast and wide charging network called the Ather Grid with more than 2000 Fast Charging Grid points in more than 170 cities in India. This wide range of networks is designed to provide riders with quick recharges while they are on the road, adding 15 km of range for every 10 minutes of charge. 

Ather Grid is free to use in most stations across India. But, with the exception of five states such as Karnataka, Kerala, Delhi, Telangana, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu.

Ather Energy- Founders and Team

Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain started this brand immediately after college with the dream and challenge to the well-established Internal Combustion Engine and replace it with an electric drive. 

Tarun Mehta graduated from IIT Madras with a degree in Engineering Design. On the other hand, Swapnil Jain was the one who conceptualized and started Ather Energy in April 2013. 

Back in his college days, Tarun was associated with various product development teams and was actively involved with the entrepreneurs’ ecosystem. He has worked on more than a dozen prototypes over a wide range of products and topics and has six co-patents under his name. 

Both Swapnil Jain and Tarun were listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018 and Fortune 40 under 40 in 2017 and 2019 for their innovative product that is disrupting the Indian auto industry. 

Ather Energy – USP and Top Features

The USP of Ather Energy has been very simple and straightforward. It’s biggest USP is its intelligent electric scooter production.The brand is known for its advanced use of technology in their electric two-wheelers.

Ather Energy as a brand empowers a small engineering team to invent a unique loT mobility system. This system of the brand facilitates platform updates every month instead of twice a year. Other than this, it also enables deployment of 43 IoT sensors on each vehicle for granular data on driver experience.

Some of its top features present on their manufactured two-wheeler models are the following:-

Trip Planner feature

It is such a feature which helps users plan their journeys on their Ather electric scooters and where they can charge along the way. This feature takes into account for the following:-

1.       Distance to the destination from the current location
2.       Current charge of the scooter
3.       Estimate of the range based on past riding pattern

Read More : Complete guide on how to setup Ev charging station in India

Map Location Sharing

It helps users to share a location or coordination from one app, such as Google Maps to WhatsApp for navigation purposes. Ather Energy scooters are the only scooters in the world with Google Maps integrated on it.

A five-year warranty

for electric batteries is offered by Ather Energy. This timeframe for its warranty is not related to its battery life.

Acceleration

of electric two-wheelers is just amazing as compared to any top-selling two-wheelers in our country.

Ather Energy Funding and Investors

Ather Energy first got its funding from Srini V. Srinivasan for Rs 25 lakhs which helped the company run for at least six months. The second investor that Ather Energy searched for was none other than the co-owner of Flipkart, Sachin Bansal. In a series of rounds, he personally invested around Rs 400 crore on Ather Energy. Interestingly, this huge investment from Sachin Bansal helped Ather Energy to make a comeback and repay its debt.

Later, this company raised around Rs 500 crore from different investors around the world. In September 2023, Hero MotoCorp and GIC invested Rs 900 crore in this company through a rights issue. In the same year, Hero MotoCorp increased its stake to 39.7% by investing another Rs 140 crore.

Some of Ather Energy’s other investors include National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and Tiger Global.

Ather Energy – Future Revenue Projection

Ather Energy has always found a way to grow rapidly despite facing many challenges and barriers. This current year, the owner of the company is not expecting much growth as there are lots of changes coming in the EV market and in the two-wheeler industry as well.

But, for the coming year they are expecting to restart their growth and are expecting a growth of 2-3 times more than their current stage. Tarun Mehta is expecting that they are expecting at least 5000-6000 crores of revenue in the coming year.

Ather Energy – Awards and Recognitions

Here are some of the awards and recognitions won by Ather Energy:-

2013

1. Most Preferred Workplace (Manufacturing Edition)
2. Top 25 Safest Workplaces in India

2014

1. Keep Walking Award-Tarun Mehta

2015

1. Young Entrepreneur Award- Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain
2. Tarun Mehta: Jagdish Khattar Rising Star Award

2016

1. 2W Category: Best PR & Comms Team
2. 2W Category: Best Creative Film
3. Electric Scoter of the Year

2017

1. Two Wheeler Manufacturer of the Year

2018

1. Best of 2021-Ather 450X
2. Green Two Wheeler of the Year
3. EV Innovation

2019

1. Gold Award for Mobility Design
2. Most Promising Startup
3. Best on Campus

2020

1. Model Citizen- Ather 450X

2021

1. Best EV Startup of the Year
2. Best Electric Two Wheeler of the Year- Ather 450X