Vietnam electric car startup Dat Bike received a capital contribution of up to $ 2.6 million

Dat Bike , a startup with the ambition to become the largest electric motorcycle company in Southeast Asia, recently received a capital contribution of up to $ 2.6 million (nearly 60 billion) through investor Jungle Ventures. Dat Bike’s products use domestic materials, with prices and performance comparable to current gasoline motorcycles.

Son Nguyen, founder and CEO of Dat Bike

Dat Bike founder and CEO, Son Nguyen, started to learn about making electric scooters when he was a programmer in Silicon Valley. In 2018, he returned to Vietnam and created the Dat Bike. Currently, about 80% of families in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam use 2-wheel vehicles, most of which are gasoline-powered motorbikes. Mr. Son Nguyen shared that many people really want to switch to electric cars, but the biggest obstacle is their performance.

He said that products from Dat Bike have outstanding performance, up to 5kW compared to 1.5kW of other cars, along with the range in a single charge is also longer (100km versus 50km). The most advanced product named Weaver will be what Dat Bike uses to compete directly with gasoline cars, designed to carry 2 people, 5000W motor with acceleration from 0 – 50km per hour in 3 seconds. The car can run 100km on a full charge (takes 3 hours), with the next version able to double this figure. The Weaver car is priced at 39.9 million VND, the average price of an electric car running on gasoline. This amount can be paid in installments for 12 non-profit months through banks in partnership with Dat Bike.

Dat Bike Weaver

Dat Bike opened its first store in Ho Chi Minh City last December. Mr. Son shared that the company has sold a few hundred products and still has a pre-order list pending. Startup has been growing 35% per month since opening stores.

Currently, Vietnam does not have specific support policies for the electric vehicle industry, but the Minister of Transport has submitted a proposal for the installation of deposit and charging stations for this vehicle. There are also two major electric car manufacturers in Vietnam, VinFast and PEGA.

Dat Bike’s advantage over other brands is to use domestic materials instead of China. This helps them to reduce transportation costs, increase production efficiency and also have tax benefits. With the newly received capital contribution, Dat Bike will expand this supply chain to other Southeast Asian countries because import duties between countries in the region are free.

On the side of Jungle Ventures, the founder of Amit Anand said: “The Southeast Asia 2-wheeler market is worth up to $ 25 billion, which is a great development for electric vehicle startups. We believe Dat Bike will be the driving force for this development, creating products capable of shaping both appearance and performance for future 2-wheeled motorbikes. “