“We are excited about our investments in Maharashtra,” Jain said in a repost of the announcement of the plant--set to come up in Aurangabad--by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on X.
In his post, Fadnavis said the plant will see an investment of more than INR 2,000 crore and will be built to “produce up to 1 million units of vehicles and battery packs” annually.
ET had earlier reported on Karnataka BJP legislator Arvind Bellad urging the Karnataka government to persuade Ather to open its new plant in Dharwad district instead of Maharashtra.
Ather is headquartered in Bengaluru, and runs two assembly plants in Hosur in Tamil Nadu, close to the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border.
Ather did not reply to a request for comment.
“With our expanding product portfolio and the increasing consumer demand for our products, we decided to strategically diversify our production capabilities to an additional location that will be closer to more markets in the country,” Jain said on X.
In April, the firm had told ET that it has a manufacturing capacity of 450,000 vehicles per annum, and is currently producing about 150,000.
Ather is set to ramp up production with the launch of its family scooter Rizta, which will target a market which sees sales of 3.5-4 million units every year, about four times more than the performance market scooter segment where Ather’s current ‘450’ range of scooters compete, chief business officer Ravneet S Phokela had said in April.
On Monday, ET reported that the firm has converted into a public limited company as part of a plan for a public listing sometime next year.
Ather is also finalising a plan to raise USD 75-90 million (about INR 750 crore) in primary funding from new and existing investors, with the funding round likely to be led by an existing investor, which might value the firm between USD 850 million and USD 1 billion, ET had reported on April 23.
In May, the firm had raised INR 286 crore ( USD 34 million) from its founders and Stride Ventures in a mix of debt and equity funding.
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