EV motorcycle startup Raptee has secured US $ 3 million in a pre-Series A round, led by Bluehill Capital. The funds will be used for the manufacturing facility, acquiring machinery, tooling for the soon to be launched motorcycle, and scaling up the team, the press release noted.
The all-equity funding round saw participation from Eugene Mayne, Founder and CEO of Tristar Global (UAE), Lakshmi Narayanan, Former CEO Cognizant, Ramesh Kannan, Managing Director, Kaynes Technology, Chandu Nair, Director, Shankara Building Products and other HNIs from India and the UAE.
Raptee has initiated R&D for the next line of products and is planning to expand the team size to 150 in line with the business plan. Raptee’s progress has also been noticed by the Tamil Nadu Government, which has subsequently allocated a 36 acre property for the company, along with other incentives for scaling up manufacturing.
Dinesh Arjun, Co-founder and CEO, Raptee said, “India is the largest motorcycle market in the world, with EV adoption on the rise. At Raptee, we want to launch a motorcycle in a mid- premium segment for consumers who believe that EVs are a true upgrade from ICE vehicles. We are extremely fortunate to be backed by investors from the manufacturing and transportation industries who understand long-term value creation and can add strategic value for us as we gear up for production and scale up."
"This being our first institutional round, we’re also proud to be backed by a DeepTech VC, Bluehill Capital. We’ve been refining and testing our vehicles, and the results are very promising. We are looking forward to launching it very soon," he added.
Manu Iyer, CEO and Partner, Bluehill Capital said, "Having evaluated over 30 EV OEMs in India and having invested deeply in the EV and clean-tech ecosystem in India, we are impressed by Raptee’s cutting edge tech and excited to partner with them on their journey."