Swapnil Jain

Swapnil Jain is the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Ather Energy, where he has been closely associated with the company’s core engineering and technology development.

Engineering background

Jain studied Engineering Design at IIT Madras, completing a master’s degree in 2012. He and Tarun Mehta worked together on technical projects during college and had discussed the idea of creating an energy-focused company years before Ather formally began.

Their early work after college centred on batteries and electric mobility. The founders initially explored battery packs and battery-swapping concepts before concluding that the larger opportunity was to build a better electric two-wheeler from the ground up.

Ather Energy was founded in 2013. Jain became the technical counterpart to Mehta’s broader organisation-building and fundraising role, leading much of the engineering work behind the company’s products.

Building Ather’s technology

Jain and Ather’s engineering teams developed technology across battery systems, vehicle electronics, connected software and other parts of the electric-scooter stack. An IIT Madras alumni profile describes him as central to Ather’s core technology and its connected-vehicle systems.

His engineering philosophy is strongly connected to building strategically important technology in-house. In a 2026 interview, Jain argued that when a company outsources a critical capability, the supplier is often the one accumulating the learning. For technologies that can become a long-term competitive advantage, his preference is to own the development internally.

That does not mean building every component. His broader point is to distinguish commodity work from the areas where technical learning, intellectual property and control over the product experience matter.

What stands out

Jain’s public profile is more engineering-focused and lower-key than many startup founders. His comments tend to centre on logic, product architecture, technical trade-offs and building things that have practical use.

Ather eventually moved from a college-incubated hardware project to commercial manufacturing, charging infrastructure and a public listing. The company’s current governance disclosures identify Jain as Executive Director and Chief Technical Officer. His role remains focused on the technical systems that underpin Ather’s scooters and future platforms.