TDK Powers Ultraviolette’s Global Ambitions With $21 Mn Bet

Electric two-wheeler maker Ultraviolette Automotive has secured an equity investment of $21 Mn (around INR 184 Cr) in a round led by TDK Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer TDK Corporation.

This capital infusion was also supported by other existing investors like Zoho Corporation, TVS Motors, Lingotto, Mudhal Partners and Ojas Consultation. The fresh funding comes just months after Ultraviolette raised INR 130 Cr in a round led by Zoho and other backers in December last year. 

Ultraviolette cofounder Niraj Rajmohan told Inc42 that the fresh funds will accelerate Ultraviolette’s product portfolio expansion and widen the retail footprint. 

On the retail front, he said that the company plans to grow its domestic presence in India from 20 cities to 40-50 cities by October 2025 and 100 cities by March 2026. 

Internationally, Ultraviolette entered the European market earlier this year and is present in 10 countries (including Spain, Germany, France, and the UK). 

The founder also said that its partnership with TDK will be pivotal in Ultraviolette’s mission to develop and scale globally. 

It already uses TDK components like axis Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) for telemetry, fault detection, and crash detection, as well as components for power management, bike control units, charging systems, and motor controllers.

Rajmohan further added that this collaboration with TDK mirrors the company’s earlier partnership with Qualcomm Ventures in 2022, where a tech partnership evolved into equity investment.

TDK Corporation is a global electronics company based in Tokyo, Japan, founded in 1935 with a focus on developing and commercialising ferrite materials, crucial for electronic and magnetic products. 

While positioning itself as design-first performance-oriented brand, Ultraviolette has made a wave of launches in the year so far. Just a few months ago, the startup launched its first electric scooter, Tesseract, while also unveiling a lightweight electric motorcycle, Shockwave. Before that, it launched its F77 Mach 2 electric motorcycle. 

Ultraviolette’s product portfolio includes F-Series (performance motrocycles), S-Series (scooter), L-Series (Shockwave) among others. The founder is looking to ramp up the production of these models with the latest infusion. 

Ultraviolette’s Distinct Market Position

Founded in 2016 by Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan, Bengaluru-based Ultraviolette Automotive manufactures high-performance electric motorcycles, bucking the affordability trend that dominates the Indian EV space. 

Ultraviolette’s notable backers includes Qualcomm Ventures LLC, Zoho, Speciale Invest, Lingotto (a subsidiary of Exor N.V.), and TVS Motor, Swiggy’s cofounder & CEO Sriharsha Majety, CureFoods cofounder Ankit Nagori, among others.

It is one of the first Indian EV brands to launch premium electric motorcycles in Europe, with plans to expand further into Southeast Asia and Latin America. While its early years were about proving technology, in 2022 it launched its first EV bike F77 in Bengaluru in a pilot phase. 

However, Rajmohan pointed out that the true sales growth only started in 2024 and 2025 after network expansion. 

Despite being operational since 2016, there are only around 3,000 Ultraviolette vehicles on the road. Moreover, the company’s net loss piled up 8X YoY to INR 61.5 Cr in FY24 while operating revenue grew 74% YoY to INR 15.08 Cr in the same fiscal.

Playing The Long Game On Profitability

Ultraviolette saw its net loss balloon over 8X to INR 61.6 Cr in FY24 from INR 7.5 Cr in the previous year, hurt by a sharp rise in expenses. Operating revenue, however, zoomed 74% to INR 15.1 Cr during the year under review from INR 8.7 Cr in FY23.

Despite its widening losses, the founder claimed to have the highest gross margins among India EV OEMs.

“We stand today with the highest gross margins for even the first unit that we sold last year. So we’re a very distinct business, in terms of sustainability, in terms of economic viability, and we are scaling up in a more organic manner than some of the other companies. Our path to profitability is very clear, and we will scale up in a more organic manner,” Rajmohan added.

While the founder refrained from sharing the revenue and bottomline for FY25, he did say that the company targets over $50 Mn in revenue by FY26, with Europe and India as the key target markets.