BENGALURU: Serial entrepreneur and Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal has invested Rs 170 crore ($23 million) in Bengaluru-based electric scooter start-up Ather Energy. The Series D funding round also saw participation from Hero MotoCorp, the largest stake holder in Ather Energy. Bansal, who was one of the start-ups early backers, has been gradually acquiring equity in Ather, with total investment in the company currently at `392 crore ($53 million) for a 20 per cent stake.
Bansal is also working on his fintech venture Navi Technologies with a focus on rural market. As for Hero MotoCorp, it has raised its stake in Ather Energy to 34.58 per cent, with the current round seeing an investment of `89 crore. The EV start-up has already introduced a new range of EV bikes recently and plans to utilise the capital from the Series D round for expanding into new markets such as Pune, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Coimbatore, Kochi, Kozhikode, and Kolkata.
