In today’s tech-driven world, when many genius minds are aiming to bring a change in several sectors of our country, some of the young startup owners are just reluctant to look beyond the much-hyped e-commerce industry. It seems like billion-dollar valuations and the heavy inflow of funds have put innovation on the backburner.
However, this was not the case in Ather founders’ lives. Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain returned to their alma mater to work on developing a Lithium-ion battery pack that completely changed people’s view towards electric vehicle companies. Let’s delve into the success story of Ather Energy.
How Did It Begin?
It all started in October 2013 at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras where two IIT alumni Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain had set out to build India’s first smart electric scooter. At that time, both Tarun and Swapnil had gained experience in the automobile industry by working in Ashok Leyland and General Motors respectively.
During their graduation, the two men interacted with several electric scooter owners and most of them expressed concerns over negligible power, lack of service support, and poor battery life.
Not only this, an initial survey gave them an insight into how people were eagerly waiting for the launch of an electric scooter that is on par with petrol scooters in terms of performance and everything. Although, the first few months were rough for both the founders as they were just hanging around in the labs to come up with an effective and energy-efficient solution.
Growth And Funding
It’s not always easy for startups to gain the attention of investors. However, Ather was lucky enough to get its first set of orders at the prototype stage, which later worked as a catalyst to raise funds for the team. In 2014, the company received Rs 45 lakh from the Technology Development Board under the Department of Science and Technology, IIT Madras, and Srini V Srinivasan, an IIT alumnus and founder of Aerospike. But their happiness was short-lived.
Later in that year, the startup was again running short of funds as it was in its testing phase. Not only this, the investors were also not willing to take the risk of putting their money into a random business venture which aims to build a smart electric scooter for the Indian market.
That’s when Flipkart founders – Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal came to their rescue. After facing a lot of rejections, Tarun and Swapnil approached the founders of the biggest e-commerce giant in India. Fortunately, Sachin and Binny believed in their idea and invested $1 million in Ather Energy in December 2014. Since then, there is no looking back for the team of Ather.
Success Of Ather Energy
Ather Energy has now emerged as the fourth largest-selling two-wheeler EV in India. In 2021, the company successfully sold 3677 units. Though the valuation of Ather is yet to touch the one billion dollar benchmark, it is continuously witnessing a surge in its popularity among the young generation.
The company is currently operating with 38 experience centres across 32 cities in India. The Ather team further is expecting to reach 150 experience centres across 100 Indian cities by the end of 2023.