Tarun Mehta, Swapnil Jain

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It definitely hasn’t come easy for Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain. First, there was Ola Electric. Then came the incumbents, Bajaj and TVS, who had been waiting on the fringes. Ather, though, held its ground, believing in its philosophy of building everything by itself, including the battery management system, motor controller, and software stack. Set up in 2013, Ather first showcased its electric two-wheeler in 2016, but had to wait until 2018 to start selling. Even then, sales remained lacklustre. “Legacy competitors play on their strength of an existing network,” Mehta had told Fortune India last year. “We will play on the product. With an expanding portfolio, we will keep going deeper with our network.” Today, Bengaluru-based Ather is India’s third-largest electric two-wheeler maker by market share, having sold more than 700,000 vehicles. Hero MotoCorp has increased its stake to 30% in the company. Much of Ather's recent success has come on the back of Rizta, launched in April 2024, accounting for nearly 75% of its monthly volumes. The company, which mopped up nearly `3,000 crore after going public last year, is in the midst of raising another `2,500 crore, including `1,500 crore through QIP and the remaining via a preferential issue, to scale up production and R&D at a time when the market in India is witnessing significant churn.