Ather Energy has received a funding of $12 million (around Rs. 76 crores) from Tiger Global Management for launching the S340 e-Scooter.
A Bangalore based start-up company called Ather Energy is known to be developing an electric scooter, the Ather e-Scooter S340. Ather Energy, which was founded in the year 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, who are both graduates of IIT-Madras, has finally found an investor for the S340 e-scooter. Tiger Global Management, which in one of the largest investors in the Indian start-up circle has decided to invest $12 million (around Rs. 76 crores) in Ather Energy.
The recently acquired funding will help the Indian company to develop, test, produce and launch its first ever smart electric two-wheeler named Ather S340. Ather Energy had received its first round of funding of around $1 million (Rs. 6.3 crores) at the end of 2014 from the founders of popular e-commerce website Flipkart, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, it also saw investment from Raju Venkatraman of Medall Healthcare.
The Ather e-scooter will become the first in the country to get an Android based tablet dashboard, which will help the rider with navigation, battery life of the scooter, distance to empty indicator and much more details. The tablet will also help to track the scooter in case it’s stolen. The S340 is powered by a lithium-ion battery pack and a light-weight aluminium chassis that is capable of taking it to a top speed of 75 km/hr.
According to Ather, the latest investment will help the company to continue to evolve the product while also making it ready for launch. At the moment, Ather Energy is at an advanced stage of integration on the vehicle’s platform and is also testing the prototype. Test rides of the same are scheduled for October 2015 and the launch for Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore is planned by the beginning of 2016.
Tiger Global Management feels that the product has great potential and it will receive a positive response when launched in the market. The company is looking forward to partnering the Ather team and bringing their visions to reality.
