Days after announcing another round of investment into Ather, Hero now commits to ongoing funding round of Gogoro – it’s Taiwanese strategic partner in the Electric Vehicles (EV) space.
Key points to note –
- Hero had announced strategic partnership with Gogoro in April 2021.
- Founded in 2011, Gogoro is into Electric Smartscooters and swappable battery infrastructure. Swappable battery network should ideally be a viable solution for concerns around EV charging. Gogoro claims to have 450,000+ battery swap subscribers.
- Idea of strategic partnership between Hero and Gogoro is to bring in this expertise of Gogoro into India.
- Current investment of Hero is in the ongoing fund raise of Gogoro, whereby Gogoro will be combined into Poema Global Holdings, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
- Quantum of Hero’s investment has not been disclosed. However, it doesn’t seem to be significant – as per the press release, Hero’s investment along with some investors is only increasing the committed amount from $257 mn to $285 mn.
Both Ather and Gogoro seem to be interesting plays by Hero. Would be interesting to see, how how they unfold.
Though personally, I believe Ather fits better into the overall scheme for Hero in the Indian context. But then given how rapidly this field is evolving and EV charging continuing to be the main concern in the mind of buyers, Gogoro may work out well for Hero as well.