With $71 million in funding, Ather Energy joins the unicorn

Famous electric scooter maker Ather Energy has joined the unicorn club after a lucrative investment round of Rs 600 crore ($71 million) from its current backer, the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF). With this most recent fundraising round, Ather is now valued at $1.3 billion, or roughly Rs 10,900 crore.

With this accomplishment, Ather becomes the second unicorn in the mobility sector and the fourth in India this year, after Rapido, which recently raised $120 million from WestBridge Capital and achieved a $1 billion post-money value.

In May 2022, the Indian sovereign wealth fund, NIIF, made its initial investment in Ather. Ather’s estimated value at the time was between $740 and 750 million. Hero MotoCorp, which owns a 40% share in Ather, is his biggest backer. In June, the company made a secondary investment of Rs 124 crore, implying a valuation of $671 million (Rs 5,636 crore).

According to reports in April, Ather was wrapping up a $70-90 million (about Rs 750 crore) first investment round from current investors. This came after the departure of Sachin Bansal, the founder of Flipkart, who sold Nikhil Kamath, the creator of Zerodha, his remaining ownership in Ather. Prior to this, Bansal owned about 10% of the business and was an early angel investor.

Recently released, Ather’s new family scooter, the Rizta, is regarded as a major product for the business, which last month had a 9% market share in the electric scooter industry. Ather lags behind market leaders with market shares of 39%, 16%, and 18%, respectively, Ola Electric, Bajaj Auto, and TVS. With a focus on the family scooter market in western and northern India, Ather intends to produce the Rizta at its third factory in Aurangabad. Its flagship 450 series serves the performance scooter market in the interim.

Ather Energy changed its status to public limited company in June, signaling that it intended to do an IPO soon. In spite of this, the company’s income was relatively stable at about Rs 1,789 crore, but its losses increased by 22% to Rs 1,059 crore in the fiscal year 2024.