Hero MotoCorp, Indian government’s sovereign fund enabled Ather Energy to raise $128 M

Ather Energy, an electric scooter company, announced a $128 million funding round headed by the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), India’s sovereign wealth fund, and current investor Hero MotoCorp.

In January, Hero MotoCorp announced a Rs 420 crore ($54 million) investment in Ather.

According to sources, the cash would be used to expand Ather Energy’s production facilities, invest in research and development, and extend its retail network, told Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Ather Energy.

“The largest chunk of investment will go into investing in capacity – not just our own capacity but also that of the supply chain so that it can scale quickly,” he said. “Overall, our components are fairly unique, so we have to make sure that our suppliers can invest for us. So, a fair bit of capacity will go towards that.”

This fundraising round, according to Mehta, is the first step in correcting Ather’s value.  “What you are seeing with this round is that we are trying to fix the liquidity problems first,” he said. “Ather has been running very lean on the limited capital we had. This is the first step in fixing the liquidity.”