Ultraviolette Raises $85 Million Series E Led by Deep-Tech Fund Yali Capital and TDK Ventures

Most electric two-wheeler funding rounds in India are about scale: more scooters, more dealerships, lower costs. Ultraviolette's latest round is different in one telling respect — it was led by a deep-tech fund, and the lead investor's explanation focused on batteries, power electronics, software and radar rather than showroom numbers.

The round

On 23 September 2026, Bengaluru-based Ultraviolette Automotive announced an $85 million Series E round led by Yali Capital and TDK Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Japanese electronics and components group TDK. Lip-Bu Tan — chairman of Walden International and chief executive of Intel — also invested and has joined the company as an adviser as it prepares to enter the United States. Existing long-term investors participated as well.

Co-founder and CEO Narayan Subramaniam described the money as primarily growth capital, and called the round an important step in Ultraviolette's evolution into a global electric-mobility company built on design and technology from India.

Where the money goes

The company has said it will use the funds to:

• scale production of its current motorcycles, the F77 and the X-47 crossover;
• bring new products to market, including the Tesseract electric scooter and the Shockwave enduro motorcycle;
• develop next-generation EV platforms; and
• expand internationally — it already sells in India and 20 European countries, is targeting entry into the US in 2027, and plans wider expansion across Latin America and South-East Asia.

Why a deep-tech fund led it

Ultraviolette was founded in 2016 by Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan. From the start, it chose a vertically integrated approach: rather than assembling bought-in modules, it has built in-house capabilities across battery technology, power electronics, vehicle architecture and software. Reports on the round note that its battery architectures span 48V to 400V, allowing the company to design for everything from scooters to high-performance motorcycles on shared technology.

That is precisely what attracted the lead investor. Ganapathy Subramaniam, founding managing partner at Yali Capital, pointed to Ultraviolette's in-house engineering across batteries, powertrains, software and radar-based rider-safety technology, and described electric two-wheelers as an important part of India's move towards cleaner mobility.

Radar is the unusual element. Automotive radar and advanced rider-assistance features are common in premium cars but still rare on motorcycles, and very rare on products designed in India. Owning that stack — sensors, firmware and the software that interprets them — is closer to the work of an electronics company than a traditional vehicle maker.

The presence of TDK Ventures and Lip-Bu Tan reinforces that reading. TDK is a major supplier of batteries, passive components and sensors to the global electronics industry, while Tan is one of the semiconductor industry's best-known investors and executives. Their participation signals that Ultraviolette is being valued at least partly as a technology platform, not only as a motorcycle brand.

What it means for India's EV and electronics ecosystem

India is the world's largest two-wheeler market, and electrification of that fleet is central to the country's climate and energy-security goals. Much of the early EV wave, however, was built on imported cells, controllers and electronics, with Indian firms competing mainly on assembly and price.

Companies that develop their own battery-management systems, motor controllers and vehicle software move more of the value — and the intellectual property — into India. They also create demand for domestic suppliers of power semiconductors, sensors and precision components, which dovetails with the government's semiconductor and electronics-component manufacturing push.

Ultraviolette's export strategy adds a further dimension. Selling premium, technology-led vehicles in Europe and, from 2027, the US, tests whether India-designed EV technology can compete on performance and safety in the world's most demanding markets, rather than only on cost at home.

The challenges ahead

The round does not remove the hard parts:

• Manufacturing scale. Ramping several new products while scaling existing ones will test supply chains, quality control and working capital.
• Regulatory hurdles abroad. US entry involves homologation, safety certification and building a dealer and service network from scratch.
• Competition. Established global motorcycle makers are electrifying their own line-ups, and competition in the premium electric segment is intensifying.
• Profitability. High-performance, feature-rich vehicles carry high development costs; the company will need volume to spread them.

The bigger picture

Ultraviolette's Series E is one of the larger rounds in India this month, and it came in a week when Indian startups raised just over $200 million across 21 deals. Its significance, though, lies less in the headline figure than in the investor mix. A deep-tech fund, a global electronics group's venture arm and a leading semiconductor executive betting on an Indian EV maker's in-house battery, power-electronics and radar stack is a signal that Indian hardware companies are beginning to be judged — and funded — as technology developers.

Sources

• https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/e-2w-maker-ultraviolette-raises-85-mn-to-scale-production-expand-presence-126092300517_1.html
• https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/ultraviolette-raises-85-million-to-expand-ev-production-enter-us-126092300692_1.html
• https://yourstory.com/2026/09/ultraviolette-raises-85-million-series-e
• https://indianstartupnews.com/funding/bengalurus-ev-maker-ultraviolette-raises-85-million-from-yali-capital-tdk-intel-ceo-lip-bu-tan-12567765
• https://evreporter.com/ultraviolette-raises-85-million-in-new-funding-round/
• https://inc42.com/buzz/from-ultraviolette-automotive-to-galaxeye-indian-startups-raised-over-203-mn-this-week/