Altigreen
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Altigreen was a Bengaluru-based electric vehicle company founded in 2013 by Amitabh Saran, Shalendra Gupta, Lasse Moklegaard, and John Bangura. It began with HyPixi, a low-cost hybrid retrofit kit for fossil-fuel vehicles, then pivoted around 2018 to manufacturing electric three-wheelers for commercial last-mile transport. In 2022 it raised a $40 million Series A led by Sixth Sense Ventures with backing from Reliance New Energy, Xponentia Capital, Accurant International, and Momentum Venture Capital. At its peak it employed over 350 people and had about 5,000 three-wheelers running in more than 120 Indian cities.
02 / Altigreen FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Altigreen was squeezed by legacy automakers such as Mahindra, TVS, Piaggio, and Bajaj that entered the electric three-wheeler segment with more advanced technology and superior distribution, while its own product quality drew dealer complaints and unsold inventory piled up for over a year. Monthly dispatches collapsed to 50-90 vehicles by late 2024. Attempts to raise an $85 million Series B failed, and subsequent talks with Hero Motors and JBM Group also fell through, leaving the company starved of working capital. Management diverted a significant share of funding into passenger-vehicle and light-commercial-vehicle R&D that produced only prototypes, starving the core three-wheeler business of sales support. Salary cuts, unpaid employee wages, and mounting vendor dues followed, culminating in the shutdown of manufacturing.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Product or service closed
Inc42's 23 Dec 2025 shutdown roundup states that after failed follow-on fundraises, Bengaluru EV three-wheeler maker Altigreen (Altigreen Propulsion Labs) shuttered manufacturing in June 2025, closing its Karnataka factory and office, and that winding down production effectively led to the startup shutting shop; Inc42 notes the company had not issued an official closure confirmation. A 24 Jun 2025 Inc42 feature, with the situation acknowledged by CEO Amitabh Saran, reported the Malur plant shut and manufacturing halted amid a fund crunch.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In FY2024 (year ended March 2024), reported losses jumped 209% year-on-year to INR 242.5 crore (about $29.2 million), while revenue grew only 25% to INR 119 crore.
- 02
Around 100 employees were laid off at the end of 2023; company-wide salary cuts began in early 2024, and salaries went unpaid from the start of 2025.
- 03
By mid-2025 the manufacturing plant in Malur, Karnataka was shut down, the Bengaluru corporate office sat empty, and remaining employees were effectively furloughed, leaving the company functionally defunct.