TVS Motor Company have just bought a 14.78% stake in Bengaluru based electric bike startup UltraViolet motorcycles.  According to a filling in the Bombay Stock Exchange, the deal was signed for Rs 5 Crore. The EV company was started in December 2015, and reported profits of Rs 3.2 lakh for the last financial year. They have been known to come up with some really interesting designs like the one in the lead image, and they have tested three prototypes till date, although they don’t really have a working product in the market yet.
UltraViolette Automotive is lead by a team of Niraj Rajmohan who is the company’s Chief Technical Officer, and Narayan Subramaniam, CEO and was founded in December 2015. The 13-odd-man company has been testing a few vehicles and a few new generation battery packs among a host of other electric bike peripherals. Which is probably why TVS (who have been working on an electric two-wheeler of their own) is so interested in the tech start-up.  The first TVS electric scooter is likely to make it to the market sometime next year although little is known about it, it’s likely they will be based on TVS’ existing scooters.
It would seem that small EV start ups are fast being targeted by bigger two-wheelers, just a while back, Hero MotorCorp also bought about 30 per cent stake in another EV startup Ather Energy for a whopping Rs 180 crore! Predictably to hasten their own electric two-wheeler manufacturing.
