A Singapore startup is raising $100m to speed up EV adoption in Southeast Asia

In this Q&A series, we suss out the opportunities, thinking, and motivations behind some of Asia’s promising startups. You can also catch our full startup coverage here.

Offer electric motorbikes for free – that’s Oyika’s plan to entice the world to give up gas-guzzling vehicles.

To be more precise, the startup, which was founded in 2018 and is led by ex-Sunseap executive Jinsi Lee, hopes to roll out subscription plans across Indonesia and Cambodia that would give users access to electric motorbikes and the ability to swap their batteries at convenient locations.

The firm is riding on a wave. Over the last couple of years, some governments in Southeast Asia have introduced initiatives to promote the use of electric vehicles (EVs), aiming to solve rising road congestion and air pollution issues in their countries. These include Thailand introducing its EV roadmap last year and Indonesia providing tax incentives for EV production and use.

Oyika is now looking to raise US$100 million to roll out 30,000 power subscription plans with electric motorbike bundles across Indonesia.

Oyika founder and CEO Lee Jinsi / Photo credit: Oyika

How is your startup solving the problem?

Lee: By making EV adoption simple and affordable via a pay-per-use, prepaid weekly, or postpaid monthly subscription plan, with no down payment, deposit, and contract required for prepaid plan subscribers.

Who is your target customer?

Every motorbike rider in Southeast Asia, where motorbikes make up 85% of the vehicles used by the commuter population.

Why is this the right time for your startup to do this?

Battery technology has improved and prices have come down. Internet-of-Things (IoT), where we can gather data about the batteries and motorbikes and send instructions to them, has also matured. There has been a more general trend of acceptance toward EV adoption.

Why is your team best positioned to solve this problem over others?

We have a seasoned team of proven entrepreneurs [that includes Carl Wong, former chief strategy officer of Rising Sun Energy], with whom I have worked successfully in earlier ventures. In less than three years and on a tight budget, Oyika has been the only company that has rolled out a sophisticated battery swap infrastructure in Cambodia and Indonesia.