Bangalore-based all-electric autonomous industrial vehicle maker Ati Motors has raised $3.5 million in pre-Series A funding round led by Blume Ventures and Exfinity Venture Partners, among others.

V Vinay, Saurabh Chandra and Saad Nasser founded Ati Motors in February 2017. 

“We have a wonderful set of partners in Blume Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners and Mobile Foundation Ventures for this next phase. They understand what it takes to do a global GTM for a deep tech India startup and we are stronger with them on our side. Ramakant Sharma was an early believer in our story and in this round itself. His backing made a big difference to us,” said Saurabh Chandra, co-founder, Ati Motors. “When we started out, we thought India would be a pilot market for us and we need to be looking out mostly. The market has pleasantly surprised us though and a strong domestic base gives us an excellent foundation on which to build our global plans.”

The fresh capital will be used to manufacture and deploy a large fleet of autonomous vehicles in factories and warehouses in both domestic and international markets.

“It has taken us a while to get to this milestone. Achieving product market fit in hardware is a much longer cycle. Grateful to the wonderful bunch of angels and Village Global who backed us during this phase trusting us to find our way to PMF. As our first customer Bimal Puri has been a great champion in being an early adopter of cutting edge technology. We owe a lot to visionary leaders like him in the industry,” Saurabh added.