Founded by IIT-graduates Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, Ather Energy Pvt. Ltd. is a two-year old automobile manufacturing company that is currently developing an electric scooter. Worked on by a team of 40 workers, the vehicle will be totally “Designed in India” – a testament to the product being conceptualized, designed and engineered in India.
The tech start-up received its first seed fund of US $1 million in late 2014 from Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal and Raju Venkatraman of Medall Healthcare which provided the early boost Ather Energy needed. The latest funding received comes from leading start-up investor Tiger Global at US $12 million. This amount will be used for development, testing, production and launch of Ather’s aforementioned flagship vehicle – the Ather S340.
The two-wheeler is armed with a Li-ion battery and features a digital touchscreen for interface purposes. It has a connected body moulded into a light-weight aluminium chassis and can reach the top speed of 75kmph. The scooter also holds the title of being the first electric scooter that has been completely, designed and manufactured in India. A notable feature of the model is its connected data. All the vehicle statistics and data will be constantly logged in and monitored for on-board diagnostics and issuing notifications for any maintenance.
The Ather S340 is planned for launch in Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi by early 2016.
