Ratan Tata & Kris Gopalakrishnan-backed Ampere to raise Rs 50 cr

Funding will help electric bike maker expand operations pan-India and increase its capacity

Ratan Tata and Kris Gopalakrishnan-backed electric bike company Ampere Vehicles is planning to go for its second round of fund raising to the extent of Rs 50 crore. This will support the company's plan to expand its operations on pan-India basis and increase its capacity. The company has also got an order from Germany for an inhouse mobility solution.

The Coimbatore-based company designs and manufactures Electric Vehicles (EV) including E-scooters, E-cycles, E-trolleys, and vehicles for the differently-abled.

Hemalatha Annamalai, CEO of the company said that the fund raising will be completed within the next few months and will support phase-II of company's growth, which has just started.

The primary objective is to support the marketing plan, pan-India expansion and to integrate the manufacturing capacity.

The company currently has two facilities in Coimbatore and planning to set up one in Chennai.

This comes on the back drop of company's plan to sell around 3,000-4,000 vehicles every month as against 300-400 now.

"We know its an ambitious target, but we will be able to achieve it since we are scaling up the operations," she said.

Currently, the company has a presence in 12 states, where  most of the focus has been in tier-II cities. Ampere is now planning to enter metros, starting with Chennai. She says, tier-II embraces electric vehicles faster.

According to her, the company will be able to scale up B2B, which is focussed on large establishments and builders. For example while the buildings are constructed, Ampere want to create infrastructures by setting up cables which ofcourse need policy supports from the Governments and all and then B2C segments.

The company want to build the brand through its distribution, sales and service.

"If you don't do this, then you will collapse. We are slow. We dont want to get bubble growth quickly or we will burst, instead we want to do this systematically and gradually," said Annamalai.

Smart Cities is another focus for the company as it want to be part of the waste management programme, for which it got solutions.

Government is looking at electric cycles and they also want to have modern town, this will be another area.

Annamalai says besides policy decisions incentives like VAT exemption for one year IT rebate etc., state governments should play a key role to make electric vehicles popular.

For instance, Tamil Nadu Government announced that they will buy scooters worth Rs 200 crore for working ladies and another 1,000 vehicles for disabled but this does not have electric scooter, its all petrol vehicles.