Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, invested nearly ₹400 crore in Ather Energy before exiting in 2024. Since then, the electric scooter company’s valuation has skyrocketed to ₹58,000 crore, highlighting the missed windfall for early backers as Ather consolidates its position in India’s electric two-wheeler market.
Sachin Bansal helped finance Ather Energy when it was still an idea taking shape inside IIT Madras, but he stepped away before the electric scooter maker’s biggest valuation surge. The Flipkart co-founder first backed the company in 2014 and, over the next decade, put in close to ₹400 crore, according to reporting by The Economic Times and other publications. Ather is now valued at about ₹58,000 crore in the market, a sharp rise from the roughly ₹5,636 crore figure attached to Bansal’s final exit in 2024.
That exit came in stages. In June 2024, Bansal sold his remaining 7.5% stake, with Hero MotoCorp buying 2.2% for ₹124 crore and Nikhil Kamath, the Zerodha co-founder, taking the other 5.3% for about ₹282 crore, The Economic Times reported. Kamath had already picked up a large block of Bansal’s holding two months earlier and described the deal at the time as one of the biggest private bets he had made. The sale effectively closed the book on one of Ather’s earliest and most patient backers.
Bansal’s timing meant the outcome was closer to capital preservation than venture-style windfall. By the numbers reported around the 2024 transaction, he appears to have recovered something near what he had invested, but missed the later gains that followed Ather’s public listing. Ather went public in May 2025 at a valuation of roughly $1.4 billion after trimming its fundraising ambitions, and its market value had climbed to about ₹24,800 crore by November 2025, according to Moneycontrol.
The rally has continued this year. Recent market capitalisation has put Ather near ₹58,000 crore, helped by smaller losses, higher revenue and a stronger position in India’s electric two-wheeler market, where it has gained ground against Ola Electric in several regions, according to the company’s market performance and reporting by the business press. That has made Kamath’s stake far more valuable than when he bought it from Bansal, with shareholding data showing sharp gains on days when Ather’s stock has risen.
Tiger Global also left the register after the listing boom. Moneycontrol reported in October 2025 that the investor sold its entire 5.09% stake for ₹1,204 crore in open-market deals. Ather’s rise since then underscores how different the company’s profile looks now from the period when Bansal was still an owner. He has since moved on to Navi, the financial services company he founded after leaving Flipkart, and the Ather investment stands as a reminder that even early conviction in a start-up can miss its richest stretch of growth.
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