India-based electric scooter producer Ather Energy has secured Rs 2.6bn ($35.1m) in series D funding from investors including motorcycle manufacturer Hero MotoCorp, Entrackr has reported.
The round was led by a $23m investment from Sachin Bansal, co-founder of e-commerce marketplace Flipkart, with the rest being provided by Hero. It represented a 10.6% fall in valuation from the company’s last round, according to a regulatory filing seen by Entrackr.
Ather has developed an electric scooter kitted out with an electronic display, auto navigation tools and the ability to feed vehicle data to a rider’s mobile device. Its electric charging network, Ather Grid, is active in two Indian cities and is set to be extended to another eight.
Another Flipkart co-founder, Binny Bansal, joined fellow angel investor Raju Venkatraman to supply $1m for Ather in 2014 before hedge fund manager Tiger Global Management added $12m the following year.
Hero paid $31m for a stake in the company sized at up to 30% in 2016, and closed a series C round featuring Hero and Sachin Bansal at $62.2m in July this year.
Ather’s largest shareholder now the series D round has closed is Hero, which owns a 37.8% stake, followed by Sachin Bansal (20.7%), Tiger Global (15.9%), company co-founders Mehta and Swapnil Jain (9.4% each) and Binny Bansal (2.3%).
