Bengaluru-based electric vehicle maker Ultraviolette Automotive has raised $85 million in a Series E funding round, as the company moves from years of technology development into a more aggressive phase of production, product launches and international expansion.
The round was led by deep-tech investor Yali Capital and TDK Ventures, while Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan also invested personally. Tan will join Ultraviolette as an advisor, adding a prominent technology executive to the EV maker’s investor base.
The latest funding is primarily growth capital, according to co-founder and CEO Narayan Subramaniam. The company plans to use the funds to scale its existing F77 and X-47 models, ramp up production of the upcoming Tesseract scooter and Shockwave motorcycle, and develop the next generation of its global EV platforms.
Credits: Malik Times
Ultraviolette Shifts From R&D to Production Scale
The Series E round marks a change in Ultraviolette’s strategy after nearly eight years focused heavily on research, development and building its technology platforms.
Subramaniam said much of the capital raised during the company’s first eight years was invested in R&D and developing the underlying platforms required to support multiple electric vehicles.
Ultraviolette has developed three core platforms covering performance motorcycles, lighter motorcycles and scooters. The upcoming Shockwave will use its light motorcycle platform, while the Tesseract will be based on its scooter platform.
The company is now preparing to significantly increase manufacturing capacity.
Ultraviolette currently has the capacity to produce around 50,000-60,000 vehicles annually across its existing facilities. It plans to establish a new manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu, with the first phase expected to increase annual capacity to 250,000 vehicles.
The facility could eventually be expanded to support production of up to 500,000 vehicles annually. The company expects this additional capacity to become necessary within the next 18-24 months as production and demand increase.
EV Maker Expands India and International Footprint
The production expansion will be accompanied by a larger sales and distribution network.
Ultraviolette currently has a presence across around 50 locations in India and plans to increase that number to 100 locations by the end of the year. The company is also expanding outside India and already has a presence across 20 European countries.
It is preparing pilot market entries in the US, Latin America and Southeast Asia, giving international markets a growing role in its expansion strategy.
The company’s product pipeline is central to this strategy. Alongside the existing F77 and X-47, the Tesseract scooter and Shockwave motorcycle are expected to broaden its product portfolio and allow Ultraviolette to target different segments of the electric two-wheeler market.
Credits: VCCircle
Common Technology Platform Drives EV Strategy
A major part of Ultraviolette’s approach is to develop technology that can be shared across multiple vehicles instead of engineering every model independently.
Co-founder and CTO Niraj Rajmohan said the company’s vehicle control unit, which processes roughly 3,000 data points per second, follows a similar architecture across the F77, X-47, Tesseract and Shockwave.
The company has also built capabilities in areas including real-time operating systems, telematics, user interfaces and vehicle software. Qualcomm and TDK are among its technology partners.
Battery technology, however, remains one of Ultraviolette’s major engineering focus areas.
The company has developed battery systems covering 48-volt to 400-volt architectures. The upcoming Tesseract will use a 100-volt architecture, compared with the 48-volt architecture that the founders said is more common in India’s scooter market.
Ultraviolette has more than 50 battery technology patents applied for and said some of its vehicles have crossed 100,000 km while retaining more than 96% of their original battery-rated capacity.
The company is also offering an eight-lakh-km battery warranty, highlighting its focus on battery durability and addressing concerns around long-term EV ownership.
With the latest funding, Ultraviolette is now looking to translate its technology investments into larger-scale production. Its strategy combines a common technology stack, expanded manufacturing, a broader product portfolio and international market entry as it moves into its next phase of growth.
