With $6M in Series A funding, Moonrider aims to drive India’s agricultural EV transition
Bengaluru-based Moonrider will use the newly raised funds to advance its vehicle engineering and battery technology, and accelerate the development of its tractor lineup.
Moonrider, an electric tractor company, has raised $6 million in a Series A funding round led by pi Ventures. The round also saw participation from Singularity AMC and existing investors AdvantEdge Founders and Micelio.
The company said it will use the newly-raised funds to advance its vehicle engineering and battery technology as well as accelerate the development of its tractor lineup. The capital will also enable Moonrider to refine its drivetrain systems, optimise battery performance, and complete durability testing across all soil and climate conditions in India and global markets.
In parallel, the company is also preparing its 27HP, 50HP, and 75HP electric tractors for commercial launch. Moonrider is looking to begin deliveries by February next year to one set of customers, Co-founder and CEO Anoop Srikantaswamy told YourStory.
Moonrider has also struck memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with clients to deliver 6,000 units of its tractors over the next three years.
Currently the company is running customer trials.
Founded by Srikantaswamy and Ravi Kulkarni in August 2023, Bengaluru-based Moonrider is among the few Indian startups attempting to shift agriculture toward clean mobility through electric tractors.
According to Srikantaswamy, it is the only electric tractor maker in India that makes 75 horsepower electric tractors, while most farmers today use tractors in the 35-50 HP power range. This means Moonrider’s tractor engines can produce more power, allowing it to perform heavier tasks more efficiently and quickly, making it ideal for demanding jobs like deep plowing, tilling, and harvesting.
Solving the energy access problem
Electric tractors, like other battery-run vehicles, need steady electricity for charging, which is a challenge in many Indian villages and towns. This high upfront cost also makes adoption difficult, along with concerns around range and availability of charging infrastructure.
Despite the challenges, Moonrider says it has managed to tackle these sticky points—financing, charging infrastructure, or fluctuating grids.
The grid problem
A common question the company gets is about the availability of electricity in its target markets. But the founder says these markets have stable and consistent electricity infrastructure.
Moonrider initially considered African and Southeast Asian markets, assuming India lacked reliable energy infrastructure. However, after visiting remote parts of the country, the company realised that India’s energy infrastructure has evolved in the past decade.
States like Rajasthan and Gujarat, which are major agricultural hubs, have surplus energy and they even sell it to neighbouring states. These are the company’s initial focus markets along with Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra.
Srikantaswamy notes that while southern states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu require grid upgrades, he expects it to improve in the next three to five years. “There won’t be any fractures in the grid, going forward, and I think energy distribution won’t be an issue. We are catching up with solar pumps and there are micro grids popping up everywhere.”
Untangling the knots
For many farmers in the country, buying a tractor is expensive and also uneconomical since it is not used daily. As a result, most farmers prefer renting tractors from other farmers or farm machinery rental companies.
Moonrider has tapped into this by collaborating with tractor fleet owners. The company closely works with Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)—a group of farmers who organise to collectively improve their bargaining power, reduce costs, and increase their income.
Moonrider is also exploring a model where FPOs act as dealership and rental touch points, where the company will sell its vehicles to an FPO which will then rent it out to individual farmers based on their cropping schedules.
Moonrider has currently partnered with EM3 agri-service in Rajasthan, which provides technology and mechanisation services to farmers. The company has also partnered with Samunnati, an agri-NBFC (non-banking financial company) that has the largest chain of FPOs.
While these partnerships address the sales problem, there is another challenge—the high upfront costs.
“On the product side, we have vertically integrated and are the only electric tractor manufacturer right now who have vertically integrated. We build our own patented battery packs, we have designed our own electric powertrain, we have all the electronic components designed and manufactured in-house and so the entire vehicle software is being written by us from the ground up,” Srikantaswamy says.
This level of vertical integration has made Moonrider tractors to be at least 50% cheaper on the battery side, bringing the cost of the electric tractor close to that of diesel run tractors. When the volumes begin to kick in and the company achieves economies of scale, it will be in a position to bring down the costs further.
“Today, if you take a John Deere tractor, it costs you about Rs 20 to Rs 21 lakhs. A Moonrider tractor also costs Rs 21 lakhs.”
Other electric tractor manufacturers in India include Sonalika and AutoNxt.
The charging landscape
While charging remains a concern for farmers, the landscape is still evolving. EV adoption, primarily two-wheelers and three-wheelers, has spread rapidly in Tier I and II cities across the country. But the next leg of electric vehicle adoption lies in Tier III and IV cities, with many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including Ather Energy, shifting its focus to smaller markets, having already established its presence in major cities.
The adoption of E2W and E3W in these small towns and villages is what Moonrider is banking on. Because with EVs comes charging infrastructure that can also be used to charge its tractors. This is one of main concerns farmers have when it comes to adopting electric tractors.
Moonrider’s tractors support three types of charging—normal charging where you can connect it to your home socket and let the vehicle charge overnight, AC chargers and DC portable chargers, enabling rapid charging whereby the vehicles can be charged in 30 minutes.
“Over the course of 24 months, how we see it is that these portable chargers that I talked about, I think will see faster adaptation,” Srikantaswamy says.
Moonrider’s higher horsepower tractors can perform up to seven hours on one charge, while in high load applications, like heavy cultivation, they can perform for about five hours, he adds.
Financing struggles
Electric tractors are a tough sell to nationalised banks because they are unsure about the residual value of the vehicle. Today, these financing institutions cannot foresee how the vehicle will perform over the course of seven years for it to give a seven-year loan tenure to farmers.
Moonrider realised that underwriting warranty on the battery and residual value of the vehicle can grant better terms. The company’s battery packs have a warranty of up to 12 years. “If the warranty and residual value is the game, we can actually extend the warranty to up to 10 years, granting people the ability to get a seven-year loan tenure for the vehicle,” Srikantaswamy notes.
Now, the company has partnered with a few NBFCs and is in discussions with national banks as well. However, at a certain scale, the company might have to adopt a model similar to Mahindra, where they have their own financial services arm, making it easy to offer financing solutions for customers, Srikantaswamy notes.
Moreover, EV financing is also improving as the electric tractor market grows in India.
India is the world’s largest tractor market, valued at $7.92 billion in 2025, and is forecasted to reach $10.95 billion by 2030, advancing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7%, according to a report by Mordor Intelligence. But diesel-powered tractors dominate the registered units, creating a pressing opportunity for electric tractors. These tractors weigh less on farmers’ pockets—be it if rented or purchased.
Edited by Megha Reddy