InnerCircle: Tork Motors on verge of closing funding round

Tork Motors is close to raising another round of funding, as it seeks to expand its volumes and portfolio, said the Pune-based electric motorcycle company's founder and CEO Kapil Shelke, on the sidelines of the Inner Circle event organised by Autocar Professional and AutoDesk which discussed the EV landscape. "We've not announced, but we're closing one round (of funding)," Shelke noted withhout divulging further information. 

The company, backed by Ratan Tata, Bharat Forge and Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal, had raised Rs 82 crore in 2023, as per media reports. 

Talking of the use of capital, he said they have been in the electric space for seven years now, and are 'very frugal'. "We understand the problem," he said, adding  that they were not looking to expand at a fast clip. Acknowledging that it would call for some capital, the requirements will not be on the magnitude of other players, he noted. 

"We are also keeping in mind that we have to become profitable one day," he added. 

Expansion plans 

Confident of his strategy, he said that they have already built a factory that can produce 5000 motorcycles. However, the company which has a presence in 25 cities, has not launched pan India in terms of distribution. "The plan is to actually set foot in the Eastern and Western regions of India, including South, where they have presence only in Bengaluru at the moment. "India is a continent. We just have to focus on increased market penetration and the numbers will grow," says a confident Shelke. 

"People love the motorcycle. They book from cities where we are not there, and that is a challenge, he adds. Further talking on the price point, Shelke notes that Rs 1.5 -2 lakh is a 'sweet spot', for pricing motorcycles.Explaining that they are at a higher price point, from a price point perspective, almost at Rs 2 lakh, this year, they aim to further expand that, and hope to sell more than 12,000 motorcycles. The company sold around 2000 motorcycles in 2023.

Talking of additional motorcycles in the pipeline, he said that Kratos was built as a platform. It started with the Kratos R, and now there will be more motorcyles on the Kratos platform, with a few on the top end and a few on the bottom end. "We are trying to make it more affordable for the customer at a price point that solves his problem," he said.