Vietnamese electric bike maker nets $2.6m in Jungle Ventures-led round

Vietnam-based electric bike startup Dat Bike announced it has raised US$2.6 million in its pre-series A funding round led by Jungle Ventures.

Son Nguyen, founder and CEO of Dat Bike/ Photo credit: Dat Bike

Other investors that participated in the round include Wavemaker Partners, Hustle Fund, and iSeed Ventures.

Founded in 2018, Dat Bike wants to drive the mass adoption of green transportation in Vietnam and potentially other countries in Southeast Asia. The company was co-founded by entrepreneur Son Nguyen, CEO of Dat Bike, who left his engineering job in Silicon Valley to build the startup.

The company’s flagship bike Weaver, which is certified by the Vietnam Ministry of Transportation, is priced at about 39.9 million Vietnamese dong (US$1,712). The startup claims that its bike can accelerate from zero to 50km per hour in just three seconds, fully charge in under three hours, and produce less pollution compared to traditional bikes.

Dat Bike has a physical store in Ho Chi Minh City and a factory in Binh Duong province, with a production capacity of about 1,000 bikes monthly. The new funding will be used for scaling, R&D, and consumer-focused operations, according to a press statement. The startup says it has recorded 35% monthly growth in terms of demand for its bikes.

“While both China and India already have dominant local bike manufacturers, Southeast Asia has no local motorcycle brand, and the market is dominated by Japanese players,” Nguyen said. “We want to change that to become the motorcycle company of Southeast Asia. And electric is our way.”

Amit Anand, founding partner of Jungle Ventures, says this marks the VC firm’s first investment in the mobility sector. But Dat Bike isn’t the first Vietnamese startup the firm has backed: In 2019, Jungle Ventures also co-led a US$6 million round in Vietnamese B2B startup KiotViet.

Dat Bike is set to capitalize on the increasing demand for motorcycles, as 80% of households in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam own such vehicles. In Vietnam, conglomerate Vingroup has also aggressively invested in the manufacturing of electric bikes, buses, and cars through its VinFast subsidiary.