India's Ather Energy raises $31m for electric motorcycles

It follows a $12 million investment last year by Tiger Global Management. A $1 million seed round was supplied in 2014 by the founders of e-commerce company Flipkart and the CEO of medical diagnostics provider Medall Healthcare.

Hero will take a 26-30% stake in the company in an effort to enhance its existing EV development program. The capital will be used in part to accelerate the roll-out of Ather's debut scooter and its related charging station infrastructure.

"Ather is the best start-up in the two-wheeler EV space and we firmly believe that they are on the way to become one of the leaders in India, potentially even globally," Pawan Munjal, chairman, managing director and CEO of Hero said in a statement. "They bring together a vision with high aspiration, ability to progress rapidly and the humility to learn and improve continually. We are excited to be a strategic investor and see this as an important step in building the necessary ecosystem needed to support commercialization of EVs in the country."

The company's S340 model is planned to launch next year in Bengaluru, Chennai and Pune at a price around INR100,000. The lithium ion battery-powered vehicle is said to be able to reach a speed of 72 kilometers per hour and travel up to 60 kilometers on a single charge. It can achieve an 80% charge in less than an hour at a standard power socket. EV charging times are typically in the range of 6-8 hours.

Earlier this year, Indian Power Minister Piyush Goyal announced a goal of making 100% of the country's vehicles electric by 2030.

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