Dat Bike raises additional $5.6 mln from two venture capital firms

Vietnamese start-up Dat Bike has raised a $5.3 million Series A led by Jungle Ventures with participation from Wavemaker Partners, the electric motorcycle maker said Thursday.

The latest funding put the Ho Chi Minh City-based manufacturer’s total raised capital at $10 million since software engineer Nguyen Ba Canh Son established the company in 2019. His ambitions include making his firm a top electric motorbike company in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Venture capital firms Jungle Ventures and Wavemaker Partners are returning investors. In April last year, Dat Bike raised $2.6 million in pre-Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures, with participation from Wavemaker Partners, Hustle Fund, and iSeed Ventures.

Part of the latest funding would be used for business expansions to other parts of Vietnam, according to Son, founder and CEO of Dat Bike. The firm is operating one physical store in Hanoi and another in HCMC. Its Weaver 200 bike is priced at VND54.9 million ($2,392), with interest-free 12-month payment plans provided by banks that partner with Dat Bike.

Son started learning how to build bikes from small parts while working as a software engineer in Silicon Valley in the U.S. He returned to Vietnam in 2018, then set up Dat Bike while seeing a market trend in using electric motorbikes to cut the amount of gasoline used.