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Chennai-based emobility startup Raptee Energy, which is working on applying powertrain solutions to build next-gen electric motorcycles, has raised $700,000 in an angel round from several investors, predominantly HNIs and angels.

These investors include a 99-year-old foundry from south India, an automotive testing company, a leading global infrastructure company, a US-based software solutions company, a Tier-I automotive supplier from Chennai, and more.

“The funds will be used to give us a 12 to 15-months runway for production and operations. We will use the funds to get our first motorcycle road ready and production ready. We expect to largely use these funds to improve the proprietary technology that we have been developing and on homologation,” said CEO and Co-founder Dinesh Arjun.

Raptee claims to be focused on entering the untapped market with its indigenous software-driven motorcycle that supersedes its petrol-powered counterpart in terms of safety, performance, reliability, longevity, cost of ownership, and comfort. 

“We’re developing a software-driven motorcycle that comprises as much R&D in software as much as in hardware. With these, our vehicles will outperform any ICE competitor in terms of performance, reliability, longevity, comfort, safety, and cost of ownership,” Dinesh added.

The motorcycles are expected to hit the market in early 2022. The startup has already accumulated bookings for seven months’ worth of production through the pre-booking portal on its website. Apart from motorcycles, it also supplies the state-of-the-art Electric Vehicle Control Units (eVCUs) that the firm has developed for its motorcycles to commercial vehicle manufacturers as white labelled plug and play products as part of its OEM solutions.

“EVs are the future. India will be the dominating market for the producers of such vehicles and their supporting subsystems. The demand for electric motorcycles is growing, especially in the premium segment. We are glad to see the Raptee team, who are also our college Alumnus, venturing into such a future dominating market with such advanced technology supported by product design innovation,” said the investor MA Gaffar, a MIT Alumni, and an entrepreneur from Hyderabad.

“Investing in such futuristic technology, innovative and renewable energy-focused products will not only be a goldmine in the future but also a boon to future generations,” Gaffar added.

According to Kumar Sachidanandam, CEO, AIC Anna University Incubation Foundation, “Electric Vehicles are one such trend waiting to transform the way we commute, whose benefits are efficiency, durability, cost of ownership and less noise, more importantly, contributing to greener world. Raptee Energy is squarely placed in the middle of this trend with their deeptech driven approach to transportation and AIC Anna University Incubator is glad to host this young and energetic team.”