Dat Bike, a Vietnamese startup with ambitions to become the top electric motorbike company in Southeast Asia, recently announced an $8M fundraise led by Singapore-based Jungle Ventures.
GSR Ventures and Delivery Hero Ventures also participated in the round, along with Wavemaker Partners and Innoven Capital. In April, earlier this year, Dat Bike raised around $5.3M, which brings their total funding to around $16.5M.
The startup intends to use the fresh funds towards building and improving their tech and product, hiring across sales, support, R&D and product teams to manage growing volumes, and invest in capacity building in its factories.
Founded in 2019 by Son Nguyen, a software engineer from Silicon Valley, Dat Bike was built with a vision to drive mass adoption of green transportation and transform Vietnam’s vehicle market from petrol to electric. Since launch, Dat Bike has opened three official stores in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang, with more stores in the pipeline.
100 km charge in 20 minutes
Dat Bike’s latest model Weaver 200 has a range of 200 km Vs 50km of most EVs, is more powerful 6kW Vs 1.5 kW of other electric motorbikes, and has a charging time of 1 hour for a 100 km charge and 3 hours for a full 200 km charge, compared to 6-8 hours of other electric bikes. Most recently, Dat Bike also launched Dat Charge, an industry-first ultra-fast charging station for 2-wheelers that reduces charging time by a third, by charging 100 km in 20 minutes, compared to 60 minutes or more for ordinary EV charging stations.
Son Nguyen, founder and CEO of Dat Bike said, “We are incredibly proud of the progress we have made so far, and we continue to strive to make electric vehicle performance at par and better than gasoline. With the fresh funds, we will be able to invest in building top-of-the-line manufacturing capabilities, scale production efficiently, and continuously improve our products for our consumers in Vietnam and beyond.”
My Tran, Vice President at Jungle Ventures said, “This is our third investment in Dat Bike and we continue to be amazed by the incredible execution by the team. The growth is testament to the electric future that Son is building with Dat Bike. We are confident that Dat Bike will lead the transformation to green transportation, not only in the region, but also globally.”
Brendon Blacker, Managing Partner of Delivery Hero Ventures commented, “We are very excited to support Son and the Dat Bike team in their mission to electrify the two-wheeler industry, which is estimated to be ~$25bn in Southeast Asia. Dat Bike have continuously demonstrated industry leading innovation, which has enabled them to compete with gas motorbikes both in terms of price and performance. The company’s mission resonates strongly with Delivery Hero’s ambitions to electrify its delivery fleet and create a more sustainable delivery industry.”
Going forward, Dat Bike will be increasing its factory capacity to meet the rising demand. In addition the company has announced its plans to expand beyond Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang, to other Tier 1 cities like Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Nha Trang, Binh Duong, Can Tho in the coming months. The startup is now getting ready to launch its latest model shortly.
