Ather Energy: Charging Ahead

Two Mechanical Engineers from IIT-Madras (Batch of 2012) dreamt of building an energy company together and they did. “We’ve been calling ourselves Ather Energy since 2009,” says Tarun Mehta, Co-Founder, Ather Energy, about himself and his Co-Founder Swapnil Jain.  Around the time Mehta graduated, he had an idea about a battery pack for which he filed a patent. “That was a time when we were filing patents left, right and center. Each of us filed around six patents. It was just a good time,” recalls Mehta. That was also the time when Tesla’s Model S had become an “astounding success” and a time when China was selling around 25-30 million electric two-wheelers, while India was selling around 60-70,000 units annually, so it did look like there was a big opportunity with the battery idea.  Considering the fact that the duo always wanted to build an energy company, they thought of taking this battery idea and building battery packs and charging infrastructure for the industry, and becoming a supplier. “So, thinking this, we quit our jobs,” says Mehta, who as a young engineer had already landed a job with Ashok Leyland. With neither Mehta nor Jain having any background in electronics,