Electric scooter-maker River eyes sales of one lakh units by 2025

The startup, founded by Aravind Mani and Vipin George, plans to touch a volume of one lakh units in the next two years.

Backed by marquee green funds Lowercarbon Capital and Toyota Ventures, the firm plans to reach peak production volume of 9,000 per month by 2025. Its new factory in the suburb of Bengaluru will start production from August this year. Pre-commercial trials at the new facility began in February.

Arvind Mani, co-founder at River, said: “We will be producing around 9,000 units per month when the plant is working in three shifts.”

The company is targeting the premium end of the EV scooter segment for its first launch by offering a range of new features. The company would be offering a 14-inch wheel base, large storage space, mid-mount belt and higher-powered motor in its first EV scooter.

“Our addressable market is the second generation of EV scooter buyers who have already tried and tested existing EV scooters and are looking for additional comfort and lifestyle elements in scooters,” said Mani.

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“We will be offering more feature rich scooters to reach out to second generation EV scooter buyers to create the space that SUVs have created for passenger vehicle space and that is why we are positioning our new offering as a lifestyle product to create a distinct USP over the available set of EV scooters,” he said.The company sees the entire 125cc scooter market size as an addressable market for it.

The premium-end EV scooters are priced around Rs 1.3-1.5 lakh per unit. This would mean at a peak utilisation rate River could reach a revenue of around Rs 1,400 crore by 2025, which is nearly half of the current year’s revenue of Ather Energy, he said.

The company has so far raised $13 million (Rs 100 crore) from four investors in two tranches.

The first tranche of seed capital of $2 million was in March 2021 from Israel-based Maniv Mobility and San Francisco-based Trucks VC, while second one was Series A funding of $11 million from Lowercarbon Capital and Toyota Ventures.

The company was valued at $33 million at the last round of funding.

A large part of funds raised have been deployed for construction of the company’s new plant at Bengaluru.
The company is in talks with several investors for the next round of fundraising that would be used primarily for the network expansion and marketing expenses.

In the first year of the operation, the company plans to have stores in 4-5 cities and it plans to open 5-6 stores every month to reach 150 cities in the next two years.