 "Sachin bansal, ather, tarun mehta, swapnil jain")
During the early days of India’s most successful start-up Flipkart, founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal would head out on scooters to make deliveries. Two-wheelers were also the chosen medium of transport for thousands of delivery personnel of the online marketplace.
Perhaps, this had prompted the Bansals — not related to each other — to invest $1 million in Ather, an electric vehicle company, in 2014. On Wednesday, Sachin Bansal took delivery of the first scooter from the company, Ather 450.
“I do ride scooters… I used to make a lot of deliveries for Flipkart,” said Sachin Bansal. “Till very recently I used to ride pillion with some delivery person.”
Taking the keys of his two-wheeler from Ather founders Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, he added: “I hope to ride this one to and from work every day.”
Sachin Bansal has been a hands-on investor since the early days of the company, which was incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. When it built a prototype of its e-scooter, he took it out for a spin at Indiranagar, an upmarket suburb of Bengaluru, where Ather had its first office in a rented house.
He had also introduced Ather to Lee Fixel of Tiger Global, one of the most prolific private equity investors.
While Ather has made it to the first landmark of giving out the first few scooters to customers, it now faces the even bigger challenge of ramping up production.
Demand is strong for Ather 450, especially considering the fact its maker is barely half-a-decade old.
Though they are reluctant to give out exact figures, the founders claim they are sold out till July next year. Over the next month and a half, the company plans to ramp-up production to get close to its Bengaluru factory’s capacity of 20 scooters a day. Ather has already received 7,000 requests to test-ride the bike, 3,000 of which have already been executed.
From its sole experience centre in Bengaluru, it has received 500 orders in the past two months.
While Ather’s sales figures will pale in comparison to even the smallest traditional two-wheeler manufacturer, for a start-up, this kind of buzz is unparalleled. Its top-of-the-line 450 model sells for Rs 124,750, after a subsidy of Rs 22,000 as part of the government’s FAME scheme. Ather claims 96 per cent of the orders it has received are for the more expensive model. Considering that Ather delivered just 10 scooters as part of its first lot on Tuesday, it’s going to take a while for the two variants — Ather 340 and 450 — to become common sights on India’s roads. The company plans to venture out of Bengaluru next year, starting with Chennai in second quarter of 2019-20. It will launch in four more cities by the end of 2019.
