Narayan Subramaniam
Co-founder and CEO, Ultraviolette Automotive
B.E. Mechanical Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore; Umeå Institute of Design, Sweden
About
Narayan Subramaniam is the co-founder and chief executive of Ultraviolette Automotive, the Bengaluru electric motorcycle maker he started in 2016 with his school friend Niraj Rajmohan. The two have known each other since the fifth grade in Bangalore and went to the same engineering college, BMS College of Engineering, where Subramaniam studied mechanical engineering and the pair won dozens of college tech-festival competitions together. After a short stint writing code at an IT company, he trained in transportation design in Ahmedabad and then at the Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden, and worked as an automobile designer with companies including Volkswagen. He also leads design at Ultraviolette. The company took its F77 electric motorcycle from concept to production and then brought radar-based safety features to a production two-wheeler with the X-47 crossover; Ultraviolette now sells both in India and 20 European countries. Under his leadership it is preparing the Tesseract scooter and the Shockwave enduro motorcycle, both built on a new 100V architecture and due in the first quarter of 2027, and in September 2026 it announced an $85 million round led by Yali Capital and TDK Ventures, with a US launch targeted for 2027.
Subramaniam has said he and Rajmohan were bouncing ideas off each other towards the end of 2014 and settled on electric mobility, judging that performance and design had been neglected by earlier electric vehicles. The founders started with a three-person team and bought their first 3D printer in 2016 to prototype quickly. Ultraviolette's backers include TVS Motor, Zoho Corporation, Qualcomm Ventures, Lingotto, TDK Ventures and Speciale Invest; StartupStory reports that the $85 million round brings its disclosed fundraising since August 2025 to $151 million. He told BusinessLine that a second phase of the company's plant would raise annual capacity from 50,000-60,000 vehicles to 1.5 lakh.
Source: evoindia.com
Companies
Narayan Subramaniam on CEODekho
Ultraviolette raises $85 million, targets US launch in 2027
Bengaluru EV maker Ultraviolette has raised $85 million led by Yali Capital and TDK Ventures, with Lip-Bu Tan joining, and plans a US entry in 2027.
1 Oct 2026 · 3 min read
Indian startups raised $203 million in week of 21-25 September
Indian startups raised $203.4 million across 21 deals from 21 to 25 September 2026, led by Ultraviolette's $85 million Series E and Ema's $77 million.
1 Oct 2026 · 3 min read
