India's first crowd-funded e-bike starts round 2 of funding

Spero, India's first crowd-funded electric bike, has initiated the second round of funding for product development. The first such campaign about a couple of months ago had garnered over Rs 40 lakh from 145 funders, fulfilling 125% of its goal. The company then received 100 plus bookings from across the country.

The second round of funding has so far raised about Rs 9 lakh.

Milltex Engineers, the manufacturer of Spero, was started with an initial investment of around Rs 1 crore by S Manikandan, a Coimbatore-based MBA.

"Lots of people came up to contribute even Rs 100 as a token amount because they were so excited about the idea. The best feedback came from an old farmer who called me and said his son had gifted Spero to him. He said his son would never have bought it unless he liked it," said Manikandan, MD of Milltex Engineers, the manufacturer of Spero.

According to the Spero manufacturer, the vehicle is more like a bike-cum-cycle as it also has a pedal for cycling. It is available in three models with 30, 60, or 100 kilometre of driving range per round of charging. The pre-order for the three models on the crowd-funding platform starts at Rs 29,900 to Rs 50,900 which is about 40% lower than their market price. The bike has a 5-speed digital gear system and a top speed of 25 km per hour.

The crowdfunding itself was done by a barely four-month-old start-up platform Fuel A Dream. "We charge 9% from the raised funding," said Ranganath Thota, founder, CEO of Fuel A Dream.

At present, electric vehicle (EV) market currently has players like Hero Eco, Mahindra Reva, Mahindra GenZe, Electrotherm, Avon, Lohia, Ampere, Ather Energy, among others. The segment is further hearing up with biggies like Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, Volvo, Audi preparing their own push to ramp up premium electric cars. More than 95% electric vehicles on Indian roads are low-speed electric scooters (less than 25 km/ hour), reveals an estimate prepared by trade association body Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV).

According to SMEV, at present, the electric vehicle industry is at a nascent stage and is less than 1% of the total vehicle sales. However, it has a potential to grow to more than 5% in few years. At present, there are more than 4 lakh electric two-wheelers and a few thousand electric cars on Indian roads.

While the government has long been promoting the use of electric vehicles under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020, the dearth of infrastructure support system like charging stations expensive batteries, etc, have created hindrance to it. The government aims to see around six million electric and hybrid vehicles on the country's roads.