Page 74 - Forbes - Asia (October 2019)

• A
Swapnil Jain (front)
S
I
and Tarun Mehta
A

•
•

A

L U M N I •

Shock

to the

System

Ather’s Tarun Mehta and
Swapnil Jain are out to
electrify India’s two-

wheeled transport market.

BY AMBIKA BEHAL

“W e didn’t start this to save the

environment,” Tarun Mehta
confides of the electric
scooter company he cofounded in 2013
with college pal Swapnil Jain, Ather En-
ergy. But if challenging the country’s
gas-guzzling vehicles helps clear the air,
so be it. “The right way to actually do
that is to create a product that people
will buy—we believe the future is elec-
tric,” he says.
Ather and other makers of electric
scooters are shaking up a two-wheeled
market that grew 6% in the year ended
March 31, to 24.5 million units, ac-
cording to the Society of Indian Auto-
mobile Manufacturers. That’s helped
draw roughly $93 million in invest-
ment to Ather, including a $51 mil-
lion round in May led by e-commerce
marketplace Flipkart cofounder Sachin
Bansal that valued it around $400 mil-
lion. Other investors include VC firm
InnoVen Capital and scooter and mo-

72 | FORBES ASIA OCTOBER 2019