The Bengaluru-based startup is challenging conventional wisdom about what's possible in the electric vehicle industry, while setting its sights on becoming a truly global brand.
13 Dec 2024 | 5262 Views | By Prerna Lidhoo
When Narayan Subramaniam was sketching the first lines of the F77, Ultraviolette's flagship product developed over six years, he drew heavily from his passion for aircraft. "Aviation DNA is woven into every aspect of our design and engineering," Subramaniam says. This isn't just a metaphor: Ultraviolette's team includes aerospace experts ...
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When Narayan Subramaniam was sketching the first lines of the F77, Ultraviolette's flagship product developed over six years, he drew heavily from his passion for aircraft. "Aviation DNA is woven into every aspect of our design and engineering," Subramaniam says. This isn't just a metaphor: Ultraviolette's team includes aerospace experts from organisations like ISRO and Boeing who bring with them a mindset of tackling fundamental engineering challenges.
"The result is a product that blends the precision and ambition of aviation with the thrill of motorcycling. Its man-machine integration—how the rider and the motorcycle move as one—is as carefully calibrated as a pilot in a cockpit. We're not just making a cool motorcycle," says the company's CEO, who is also the head of design. "We're creating a new identity–for electric, for innovation, and for the future of India."
Subramaniam is clear he wants to position his eight-year-old startup as a market disrupter. "If we are competing with larger companies, the onus is on us to disrupt every aspect of the brand–from its discovery to its ownership experience; they don't move as fast. We will always want to remain nimble and small," he said.
He believes people today want something different from what the legacy companies have been doing. "The motorcycle space was awaiting disruption. For us, it's all about the design principles of functional honesty, which means that everything on the vehicle is there because it is solving a particular function or for a certain performance aspect. Otherwise it's not there. For example, we wouldn't put fake speakers," he explained.
Backed by marquee investors like Lingotto (a subsidiary of EXOR N.V., known for its major stakes in Ferrari, Stellantis, The Economist Group, etc.), Qualcomm Ventures, Zoho Corporation, TVS Motors, and Speciale Invest, the maker of the F77 and the recently-launched F99 wants to create a global brand from India.
For him, Ultraviolette is more than just a business: it's an audacious attempt to redefine what an Indian brand can be on the global stage. But scaling such a vision comes with formidable challenges. To dominate the domestic market, Ultraviolette must navigate the price-sensitive nature of Indian consumers while maintaining its premium positioning.
The infrastructure for EV adoption, though improving, remains inconsistent, adding another layer of complexity. Internationally, they will face entrenched competitors with decades of brand loyalty and deep pockets. Supply chain optimisation, stringent global regulations, and maintaining their hallmark precision at scale are bound to test their resolve.
For Niraj Rajmohan, the CTO of the firm, it will never be an overnight success. "We are mentally preparing ourselves for the long haul. How many aspirational products have come out of India that have scaled globally? We aspire to be globally recognised as the most advanced India-made motorcycle brand. In the last two decades, we've conceded the 'performance bikes' stature to the global players. With our expertise built out in the last eight years on electric, we are now positioned to leverage that," he said.
Export-Ready Design
One of the primary reasons why the company chose the mid-segment is to have a readymade global appeal for its product, which will help it position itself well in the global markets. "Globally, companies are coming down from the 1000cc litre-class to the 400-500cc categories. That market globally is growing, including in India as well. It was the biggest challenge because the technology simply did not exist for this segment in electric. So, we had to work with motors that were used for electric aircraft and fine-tune those for our EVs," Subramaniam said.
The company says that they've built their vehicle keeping a certain "global appeal" in mind. "People really appreciate how progressive the vehicle is. There is not a certain purely Japanese or purely German or purely Italian appeal to it. Its design language is global," he adds.
The company's USPs, founders say, are that its products are built for all markets. "Our vehicles, our products are built for all of these markets. It's not that we've built these specific to one market; we've catered to the most aggressive requirements of the mid-segment motorcycle segment," Rajmohan said.
The company is seeing demand for its motorcycles across 190 countries. "For us, the starting point is Europe, because motorcycling is part of their culture. We've got our vehicles certified. We're road-worthy and we're starting our expansion in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and Turkey," Rajmohan said.
While India is more than half of the overall global market, their next big markets are Europe, North America, LatAm, parts of Oceania, and Japan. "I think this coming year is going to be heavily biased towards domestic markets, with a slow ramp up on the international front, because we always want to get things right in any new pilot markets that we go into, but that's certainly a part of our overall growth strategy," he adds.
Deeper Local Penetration
While the electric scooter segment in India is gaining rapid traction, fuelled by both startups and established OEMs, the electric motorcycle market is still in its early stages, with only a few players like Revolt and Ultraviolette taking the lead. However, with companies like Ola Electric set to unveil its first electric motorcycle and Hero MotoCorp preparing to launch six models under its Vida brand, along with four more in collaboration with Zero Motors by FY26, Ultraviolette's journey is poised to face fierce competition ahead.
The company has plans to scale up sustainably in the domestic market before taking a full-fledged international leap. Currently operating in 10 cities, it's looking at expanding to 30 cities in India by March, and 50 more cities globally in the near future. "In terms of volumes, we're looking at getting 5,000 units in the next year, and scaling that up to 15,000 units in the following year," Rajmohan said.
Subramaniam said that despite its aggressive growth plans, the company is mindful of growing sustainably. "Other startups have consumed 5-8x of what we have consumed to get to a similar stage. It's a matter of capital efficiency, less experimentation, and finding the right people," he said.
This efficiency-focussed approach has always been at the core of the company since its inception. Subramaniam recalls those hundreds of meetings and rejections, after which the breakthrough finally came with Vishesh Rajaram of Speciale Invest–their first investor. But proving their mettle didn't stop there.
Ultraviolette soon needed a critical piece of equipment–a load bank–to simulate real-world conditions for testing their battery packs. Imported load banks from Germany and other markets were exorbitantly priced, nearly 40% of the company's funds, and completely out of reach. Yet, halting progress wasn't an option.
In a move that would define the company's ethos, the company's electronics team pivoted. They set aside their vehicle design tasks and, over the course of a month, built their own load bank from scratch. What would have cost a fortune was created at a fraction of the price–nearly 10 times cheaper.
This ingenuity not only validated Vishesh's faith but also laid the foundation for the company's DNA: frugality, innovation, and perseverance, Subramaniam says. "It has been constant churning for us but we've made sure we use our capital as efficiently as possible. Now we can see signs of portfolio expansion. Our spectrum is going to broaden, which is also going to be a lot more demanding on our production side. So, parallelly we are in talks with multiple governments for an all-new plant," he adds.
The current capacity for Ultraviolette is 30,000, and instead of going for a mega gigafactory, the company wants to develop multiple smaller hubs. "Sometimes, you start to question whether you really need a mega factory or small hubs everywhere. We want to look at smaller assembly bases around the world that don't require us to invest in a new line altogether," he added. The company has seen an investment of around Rs 400 crore so far.
In the next phase of growth, the company will be focussed on portfolio expansion and in 2-3 years, aspires to be in all four segments. "Motorcycle sports, street, cruisers, and ADVs and everything else is a crossover in between. We want to eventually expand in all four," he said.
According to Rajmohan, the company is in the stage for growth mode, where the growth is more in terms of portfolio expansion and distribution and expansion on the geographical front, and less to do with building core tech because that's already been built out. "We're always talking to potential long-term partners and we're very specific about whom we talk to and the kind of investors that we bring on board. We've been fortunate enough to have some very long-term investors on our cap table and we continue to have these conversations as we go forward," he said.
To further its product expansion plans, Ultraviolette is also in talks for a capital raise to the tune of between $50 to 100 million, with the intent of scaling its portfolio to multiple segments across two-wheelers as well as catering to markets in five different continents.
Another important consideration for Ultraviolette in the domestic market is getting its pricing strategy right. "India at scale is price conscious. So, our intent may not be to be the largest volume seller. Of course, we need a reasonably high volume to grow as a company. But there are a vast majority of people waiting for good quality, progressive, futuristic technology products in the motorcycle space. That is the niche that we want to play in and make that game count. And that niche is pretty big," he said.
According to him, the company's holy grail has been to have most of it built in-house to get the pricing right. "Our batteries, motors, design, everything is in-house. We are not paying a bigger margin at a component level, which is where we are able to get the cost to where it is," he said.
In India, the motorcycle market is about 15 million per year and out of that 200cc and above vehicles are almost 3 million. "That's a massive headroom. There are 30 lakh motorcycles selling in our category. In that segment, we have already achieved price parity since most 300-500cc motorcycles on road cost between Rs 3-4 lakhs and their fuel cost over 5 years is another Rs 3 lakhs. But if they purchase our vehicle at about Rs 3-3.5 lakhs, their operational cost is now reducing by 60-70,000 per year," he said. He added that there are sizeable volumes in the market and so the addressable markets actually can be economically viable if everything is done right. Ultraviolette has cumulatively sold close to 1,000 bikes so far.
On the policy front, the company expects a common bar for startups when competing with legacy players. "While FAME has helped fast-track adoption in the mass mobility segments but we don't qualify for that. But PLI is something we should probably, as a collective, look at in terms of more support for startups. It's about having a common bar for a company that has been in revenue for multiple decades versus a company like us which is a few months into revenue; we won't, of course, meet the same standards," Subramaniam said. "For us, the business has to be sustainable inherently. It can't be sustainable because of a subsidy or a scheme from the government. It has to be that we are able to make profit on our products," he adds.
"The vision for Ultraviolette was never just about building electric vehicles—it was about crafting a brand that would stand shoulder to shoulder with the most iconic names in the world," says Rajmohan. Their inspiration comes from the golden era of innovation–the heydays of Sony with its Walkmans and first televisions, Apple's revolutionary iPhones, and Dyson's transformative designs. "They weren't just companies; they were movements, shaping culture, changing perceptions, and creating objects of desire. That's the legacy we're building for Ultraviolette." As the Bengaluru-based startup takes on fierce competition at home and abroad, the question remains: can Ultraviolette truly rise to become the global icon it envisions?