Electric motorbike startup bags $5.3 mln

The Series A round was led by Singapore-based Jungle Ventures with participation from existing investors Wavemaker Partners, also based in Singapore.

Dat Bike intends to use the new round of funding to invest in technology, scale production, expand to metro and Tier one cities across North, Central and South Vietnam, and hire top talent, it said in a statement.

"Dat Bike is proud to be at the forefront of reimaging transportation in Southeast Asia, said Son Nguyen," founder and CEO.

"We are incredibly proud of the progress we have made so far, and we continue to strive to make electric vehicle performance on par and better than gasoline."

Founded in 2019, Dat Bike aims to drive the mass adoption of green transportation in Southeast Asia and convert the 250 million gasoline motorbikes to electric.

Since the launch of Weaver 200 (November 2021), the company has been overwhelmed with customer response, with revenue increasing 10 times, despite a waiting time of up to four months.

It opened a new store in Hanoi this month and will open a new one in Da Nang City soon.

"The $25 billion two-wheeler industry in Southeast Asia, in particular, is at the cusp of electrification. Son’s determination to electrify Southeast Asia’s two-wheeler market is in great part driven by an acute awareness of the looming environmental threat and delivered by the unmatched performance of Dat Bike," said My Tran, vice president at Jungle Ventures in the announcement.

Over 2.49 million motorbikes, most of them gasoline, were sold in Vietnam last year, down 8.1 percent from 2020, according to the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers.