Startup Deep Dive : Ultraviolette — 40,000 bookings in 10 days, losses still dwarf revenue

Ultraviolette Automotive took more than 40,000 pre-orders for its Tesseract electric scooter within ten days of launch in March 2025, according to the company. In the same financial year, the Bengaluru motorcycle-maker lost ₹116.3 crore ($12.1 million, at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026, Trading Economics) against total income of just ₹36.2 crore, as per its financial filings reported by Inc42.

That is the contradiction sitting at the centre of Ultraviolette’s story. A company that spent six years building a premium, low-volume electric motorcycle for a niche of enthusiasts has, in the last eighteen months, tried to become something else entirely: a mass-market scooter maker with a 250,000-unit factory on the way. The F77 made Ultraviolette famous among two-wheeler nerds. Whether the Tesseract can make it a real business is the question this piece tries to answer, using only what the company and its backers have actually disclosed.

Quick facts

What they do

Ultraviolette designs, builds and sells electric two-wheelers out of Bengaluru, positioned above the ordinary electric scooter on price and performance. Its flagship is the F77, a performance electric motorcycle line that includes the F77 Mach 2 and F77 SuperStreet, priced from around ₹3 lakh and built to compete on power, range and tech rather than running costs. In 2025 the company widened its range with the X-47 crossover, the Shockwave, and the Tesseract, a more affordable electric scooter aimed at the volume market rather than enthusiasts. Buyers are, so far, mostly young, urban riders in India willing to pay a premium for performance and design, plus a smaller but growing base of European riders buying the F77 through distributor partners in more than a dozen countries, according to the company’s own press material and Forbes India’s reporting on its EU homologation.

The origin

Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan have known each other since the fifth grade in Bengaluru and studied at the same engineering college, according to the Founder Thesis podcast profile of the pair. Narayan went on to study transportation and automobile design at Sweden’s Umeå Institute of Design and worked at design studios including Volkswagen’s and LUMIUM before returning to India, as per his YourStory profile. Niraj studied at BMS College of Engineering and worked as a senior systems engineer at Yahoo and a product manager at NetApp before founding a startup of his own. They started Ultraviolette in 2016 on a specific insight: India’s two-wheeler market was moving toward electric, but every electric two-wheeler on sale was built to be cheap and slow, engineered down to a low price rather than up to a performance target. The founders’ pitch, drawn explicitly from aviation and aerospace design principles, was to build the electric equivalent of a performance motorcycle first, and worry about affordability later, according to the company’s own “About” page.

The struggle years

The gap between that founding insight and an actual product on the road was long, and it was not smooth. Ultraviolette first showed the F77 in late 2019 with a modest 150 km range, well short of the promises it had made. Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic halted development entirely; the company redirected its remaining resources into re-engineering the battery pack rather than pushing to market, as reported by Inc42’s retrospective on the company’s founding years. Between 2019 and 2022, Ultraviolette rebuilt the F77’s battery architecture twice over, moving from an 18650 cylindrical-cell format to the larger 21700 format used in the production bike, first raising range to 200 km and eventually to 307 km on the top Recon variant. The commercial launch that should reasonably have happened around 2020 did not take place until 24 November 2022, in Bengaluru, six years after the company was founded and with no revenue of consequence booked in the interim. Even after that launch, the pattern repeated: the Tesseract scooter, unveiled in March 2025, saw its promised delivery timeline slip by more than nine months because Ultraviolette’s existing factory could not handle the order volume the launch generated, as reported by ThePrint in its profile of the company’s manufacturing constraints.

The turning point

The clearest before-and-after moment in Ultraviolette’s history is the Tesseract launch on 5 March 2025. Before it, Ultraviolette was, by its own later cumulative disclosures reported by Autocar Professional’s sales tracker, a company that had sold roughly 2,000 F77 units across its first two full years on the road, a volume that made it a talking point in the electric two-wheeler industry but a rounding error next to Ather Energy or Ola Electric. The Tesseract changed the scale of the conversation immediately: Ultraviolette said it received more than 40,000 bookings for the scooter within ten days, and ThePrint separately reported that the company’s first container loads of exports to France sold out ahead of arrival. The gap between those booking numbers and Ultraviolette’s actual factory output is itself the turning point’s second half — a company built to make a few thousand premium motorcycles a year was suddenly staring at demand for a mass-market product it did not yet have the capacity to build, which is precisely why it broke ground on a much larger factory afterward.

The money behind it

Ultraviolette has raised money in stages that track its product roadmap closely. TVS Motor Company led a $15 million Series C round in December 2021 alongside Zoho Corporation, as reported by EVreporter; TVS’s involvement gave the startup a strategic link to an established two-wheeler manufacturer just as it prepared for its delayed commercial launch. Qualcomm Ventures co-led a Series D extension of $24 million in November 2022, the same month the F77 finally reached showrooms. Zoho’s founder Sridhar Vembu has been a recurring backer since that period, later joined by fellow Zoho executives Mani Vembu and Kumar Vembu in subsequent rounds, giving the company a source of patient, founder-led capital through its slow early years. TDK Ventures, the venture arm of the Japanese battery and materials group, led a $21 million tranche in August 2025, a strategic fit given Ultraviolette’s own battery engineering focus. Most recently, Lingotto — an investment manager linked to the Agnelli family’s Exor holding company, which also holds a stake in Ferrari — led a $45 million round on 4 December 2025 alongside Zoho, according to Business Standard and Entrepreneur India; the round’s timing lined up with Ultraviolette’s push into Europe, though neither party has stated the two were directly connected. Total funding raised is reported at $135.9 million by Tracxn and at roughly $145 million by Entrepreneur India as of December 2025 — the gap likely reflects timing and which tranches each tracker counts. Ultraviolette has not disclosed a valuation for any of its rounds since 2022, and neither Business Standard nor Entrepreneur India’s coverage of the December 2025 round could confirm one, so this piece does not state a figure.

How it makes money

Ultraviolette earns almost all its money the way any motorcycle manufacturer does: it sells hardware. In FY25, bike sales brought in ₹28.9 crore, servicing added ₹1.6 crore and accessories ₹1.1 crore, together making up its ₹32.3 crore of operating revenue, as reported by Inc42’s breakdown of the company’s FY25 filings. There is no subscription, platform fee or take rate in the business model; the company does not disclose one, and none appears in its filings. The part observers often get wrong is assuming the losses are primarily a battery-cost problem. They are not, on the disclosed numbers: cost of materials was ₹40.6 crore in FY25, already more than total bike-sale revenue, but employee benefit expenses of ₹59.3 crore and advertising and promotional spending of ₹29.2 crore — up 191.0% year-on-year — did comparable damage to the bottom line. Total expenditure of ₹188.7 crore against total income of ₹36.2 crore means Ultraviolette is currently spending roughly ₹5.2 for every ₹1 of income it earns, a gap that has to be closed by unit-cost reduction and volume, not by marketing discipline alone, once the Hosur factory is running.

The numbers

Revenue has grown quickly off a small base every year since Ultraviolette began commercial sales, but losses have grown faster in absolute terms, as reported by Inc42’s coverage of the company’s FY24 and FY25 regulatory filings.

Revenue rose 73.9% in FY24 over FY23, and a further 113.9% in FY25 over FY24. Net loss, though, rose roughly eightfold in FY24 over FY23 and 88.8% again in FY25 over FY24 — meaning that for every rupee of extra revenue Ultraviolette has earned in the last two years, it has spent several more rupees getting there.

Where the money comes from

By product, the FY25 split is heavily concentrated: bike sales alone were ₹28.9 crore of the ₹32.3 crore in operating revenue, roughly 90%, with servicing and accessories together making up the rest, as per Inc42’s FY25 breakdown. That imbalance is itself notable — a two-wheeler company with a growing fleet on the road usually sees servicing revenue climb as older vehicles come in for maintenance, and Ultraviolette’s is still tiny, consistent with a vehicle base that is still young and largely under warranty. By geography, the picture is closer to the opposite of what the company’s press coverage might suggest. Ultraviolette’s F77 is now sold in more than 40 countries, including EU nations, the UK, Japan, Australia and parts of Southeast Asia, following EU type-approval in September 2024, as reported by Forbes India. But ThePrint reported that Ultraviolette’s early export shipments to France moved in single container loads, which sold out before arrival — a sign that, however wide the company’s export footprint looks on a map, the actual unit volumes leaving India are still small next to the roughly 3,800 to 4,000 units Autocar Professional projected Ultraviolette would sell inside India in calendar year 2026. The surprise, in other words, is not that Ultraviolette exports to 40-plus countries; it is how few vehicles that footprint currently represents.

The risks

First, import dependence. Ultraviolette has said it sources battery cells, semiconductors and EV motor magnets from overseas because they are not manufactured in India at the volumes or specifications it needs, as reported by Forbes India — a mechanism that ties its cost base and delivery schedules to currency movements, trade policy and, in the case of magnets, China’s dominance of rare-earth supply. Second, execution risk on manufacturing scale-up. The Tesseract’s delivery delay of more than nine months, caused by the existing factory’s inability to handle order volumes, is not a one-off; the new Hosur facility is being built in phases toward a 250,000-unit annual capacity, and any slippage in that ramp directly delays the revenue the company needs to narrow its widening losses. Third, a financing-dependence risk that follows from the numbers themselves: FY25’s net loss of ₹116.3 crore against total income of ₹36.2 crore means Ultraviolette has needed, and will keep needing, fresh equity to keep operating, and it has raised in five distinct tranches since 2021; any slowdown in venture funding for Indian EV hardware would put real pressure on its runway. A fourth, more structural risk worth naming: Ultraviolette’s original premium-motorcycle niche is genuinely small, and cheaper electric motorcycle rivals such as Revolt Motors and Oben Electric already outsold it in unit terms in calendar year 2026 to date, according to Autocar Professional, even though Ultraviolette’s average selling price is far higher — the performance segment it built its brand on may simply not be large enough to carry the company on its own.

The takeaway

Ultraviolette’s history is a reminder that brand heat and revenue are not the same thing, and that a company can be simultaneously famous and financially small. Six years of engineering discipline bought Ultraviolette a genuine reputation in a niche most competitors ignored, and that reputation is real — reflected in Tesseract’s 40,000-plus bookings and a footprint across more than 40 export markets. But reputation converts into a sustainable business only when it is matched by manufacturing capacity and unit economics, and Ultraviolette’s FY25 filings show a company still years away from that match: revenue growing fast off a tiny base, losses growing faster, and a factory not yet built at the scale its own bookings implied it would need. The transferable lesson is not “build something people want” — Ultraviolette has clearly done that — it is that demand a company cannot yet fulfil is a liability as much as an asset, showing up as reputational risk and refund pressure until the factory catches up.

Frequently asked questions

Who founded Ultraviolette Automotive and when?

Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan founded Ultraviolette in Bengaluru in 2016. Narayan serves as CEO and Niraj as CTO, according to the company and Wikipedia’s profile of the firm.

What does Ultraviolette Automotive sell?

Performance electric motorcycles under the F77 name, the X-47 crossover and Shockwave, plus the more affordable Tesseract electric scooter launched in March 2025, sold in India and exported to more than 40 countries.

How much money has Ultraviolette raised, and who are its investors?

Total funding is reported at between $135.9 million (Tracxn) and roughly $145 million (Entrepreneur India) as of December 2025, from investors including TVS Motor Company, Zoho Corporation’s Sridhar Vembu, Qualcomm Ventures, TDK Ventures and Lingotto. The company has not disclosed a valuation for its rounds since 2022.

Is Ultraviolette Automotive profitable?

No. It reported a net loss of ₹116.3 crore in FY25 (year ended March 2025) against total income of ₹36.2 crore, as per its filings reported by Inc42, continuing a pattern of losses widening faster than revenue since at least FY23.

Is Ultraviolette listed on the stock exchange?

No. Ultraviolette Automotive Private Limited is privately held and has not filed for an initial public offering as of September 2026.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Inc42, “Ultraviolette’s FY25 Loss Magnifies 89% To INR 116 Cr Despite Healthy Top Line Growth” (2025)
• Inc42, “Ultraviolette’s Loss Jumps 8X To INR 62 Cr In FY24” (2024)
• Inc42, “Ultraviolette Automotive — Funding & Revenue” company financials page (2026)
• Inc42, “Inside Ultraviolette’s 6-Year Electric Revolution: How The Emotorcycle Maker Is Ready To Race It Out With KTMs & BMWs” (2025)
• EVreporter, “Ultraviolette Raises Series C Investment from TVS Motors and Zoho” (December 2021)
• Business Standard, “Ultraviolette raises $45 million from Ferrari-investor Lingotto, Zoho” (December 2025)
• Entrepreneur India, “Ultraviolette Raises USD 45 Mn In Series E Round” (December 2025)
• Humans of EV, “Ultraviolette Secures $45M from Zoho and Lingotto to Accelerate Global Scale-Up” (December 2025)
• Tracxn, Ultraviolette company profile — funding and investors (accessed September 2026)
• Forbes India, “From F77 to Tesseract: Ultraviolette expands its EV lineup” (2025)
• ThePrint, “Ultraviolette is small in sales, big in ambition. Tech sets this electric motorcycle apart” (2026)
• Autocar Professional, “Demand Grows Strongly for Ultraviolette Performance Electric Motorcycles” (2026)
• EMobility+, “Ultraviolette to Set Up 250,000-Unit Manufacturing Facility in Hosur, Tamil Nadu” (September 2026)
• Wikipedia, “Ultraviolette Automotive” (accessed September 2026)
• YourStory, “Narayan Subramaniam” founder profile (accessed September 2026)
• Founder Thesis, “Niraj Rajmohan & Narayan Subramaniam are revving up innovation, from garage to global” (accessed September 2026)
• Ultraviolette Automotive, “About Ultraviolette” company page (accessed September 2026)

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