START-UP ISLAND. Ather Energy: thinking beyond ‘clean and green’

With climate change becoming a pressing issue the worldover, small ventures that set the ball rolling for entire ecosystems to tackle big problems need to be supported. The environment is increasingly under stress with no let up in urbanisation among developing countries. Vehicular pollution in urban India is no small contributor.

Start-up Island caught up with Ather Energy to understand what co-founders Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain are on to when they talk of the Ather S340, their electric vehicle. If their product is received well, it may well be the Tesla equivalent for the two-wheeler segment.

Mehta and Jain are setting out to change what the electric two-wheeler has meant for so long.

“We’re building something that’s 20 times more powerful that what is on offer today. It will charge in an hour and go further than most others in the electric category. Our vehicle will weigh about 85 kg making it 25 per cent lighter than the average petrol two-wheeler,” Mehta says. Ather Energy hopes to start customer trials early next year and begin shipping the product by the second half of 2016. While large brands need volumes to enter this market, Mehta is expecting competition from other Asian players in time. But he believes the market created for electric two-wheelers is just wrong at the moment.

“You’ve got to give the user a story that goes beyond clean and green. Getting serious about EVs means it has to be your life and the sales pitch can’t be ‘Save the environment’ any longer. How long can you sell a product on the basis of people’s goodwill while not delivering on efficiency?” he asks.

After starting up in late 2013, they managed to get the buy-in for their idea of a smart scooter among potential customers. Although funds were not easy to come by, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal lent their support as early investors (in their individual capacities) in Ather Energy. After that seed round of $ 1 million came in around a year ago, Tiger Global chose to back the start-up with $12 million. “Ours is a smart vehicle. And we’re a vehicle company, which I think is huge for a start-up,” says Mehta.

Ather Energy will target young people working in cities, perhaps many of them working in start-ups and of the mid- to high-income segments who know what they’re buying. Mehta and Jain want to take the vehicles to Delhi, Chennai and Pune next if the Bengaluru market responds well to the vehicle.

“We are not here to build the company to a large valuation, have an exit, make our money and move on to something else. We’re going to build this company over the next 20 years,” Mehta declares.

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