Alibaba,Tencent And Hillhouse Invested in E Bike Industry

TENWAYS, a R&D and manufacturer of electric bicycles, completed its A-round financing of 300 million yuan on Jan 09. The A2 round was led by the consumer investment company L Catterton (Luwei Kaiteng). Tencent, Hillhouse, and Alibaba were the investors in the A1 round of financing.

Previously, TENWAYS received an exclusive Pre-A round of investment from Hillhouse Ventures at the end of 2021.

TENWAYS is a start-up company established in May 2021. In less than two years, there are many star-studded investment institutions behind it. There are not only industry giants like L Catterton (Luwei Kaiteng), but also front-line investors such as Hillhouse Capital and Huaying Capital. Institutions have also attracted big Internet companies such as Alibaba and Tencent to place bets.

Not only is TENWAYS favored by capital, since 2022, at least three Chinese E-bike startups have completed a new round of financing.

With labels such as "carbon neutrality + short-distance travel + consumer technology + smart hardware + going to sea", E-bike is obviously an investment hotspot that cannot be ignored.

Relying on the Chinese supply chain, attacking the European and American markets

TENWAYS is mainly committed to the research and development and production of high-quality E-bike. Compared with the traditional two-wheel travel mode, the E-bike with electric power assistance not only retains the sports fun of traditional riding, but also realizes the mixed output of manpower and power. , has the dual attributes of commuting and sports.

Although TENWAYS was only established in May 2021, behind it is Trinidad, a bicycle company with a history of 32 years. In 2014, Liang Xiaoling, the founder of TENWAYS, became the general manager of Trinidad Group. Liang Xiaoling's keen Trinidad has made several major reforms, among which it proposed to develop the iVelos private customization platform and electric assist bicycles.

In 2016, Liang Xiaoling officially explored the field of E-bike. At that time, Trinidad and Qingke reached a strategic cooperation to jointly launch the Trinidad X1E smart motorcycle. It is reported that the smart motorcycle is equipped with the VeloUP! Weixiu! smart power system developed by Qingke, with the torque sensor as the core, and the data from the torque, cadence and speed triple sensors are calculated in milliseconds through the automotive-grade Freescale chip. In this way, it can understand the user's riding intention and road conditions, and automatically output auxiliary power.

In the second year, Trinidad successively launched the cutting-edge version of the smart motorcycle X1E, the lady bike Sella 2.0 and the folding bike Wanna 2.0, continuously expanding the E-bike product line.

However, the domestic market is still dominated by electric vehicles for a long time, and it is difficult for E-bike to break through. However, Liang Xiaoling firmly believes that E-bike can change the way users travel. Since it is not easy to break through in China, Liang Xiaoling set his sights on the European and American markets.

Europe has a long cycling tradition and culture, and has a mature bicycle highway network. E-bike has a wide range of usage scenarios as a commuter tool.

In 2021, Liang Xiaoling founded TENWAYS, and set Europe as the first stop for TENWAYS to build brand influence. And at the beginning of its establishment, TENWAYS was positioned as a global company. Its brand, design and sales channel centers are located in the European headquarters, and its R&D, operation and supply chain centers are located in Asia. This also enables TENWAYS to design and develop high-quality products. At the same time, maintain the cost advantage.

At present, according to the official website, TENWAYS has launched two models, CGO600 and CGO800S, priced at 1,499 and 1,899 pounds (equivalent to about 12,000 yuan and about 16,000 yuan).

In addition to product development and sales, TENWAYS has also established a user community, trying to establish a lifelong relationship with users and create a Tenwayers culture.

The E-bike hot attract the capital investion

In European and American countries, E-bike has reconstructed a new short-distance travel mode, which has caused a new trend.

According to public data, the European E-bike market will sell more than 5 million units in 2021 alone. And with the continuation of the epidemic, people's awareness of health and concerns about the safety of public transportation, as well as soaring oil prices and favorable policies in various regions have all promoted the popularity of cycling and the outbreak of the E-bike market.

According to the forecasts of CONEBI, WEF and CIE, the penetration rate of the European E-bike market is expected to reach 50% in 2025, and the sales volume is expected to exceed 10 million.

In addition, the motorcycle market in the European and American markets relies on imports. Taking the United States as an example, according to data released by LEVA, the United States will import nearly 790,000 E-bikes in 2021, a 70% increase from the 463,000 imported in 2020.

As a big bicycle country, China has mature capabilities in product research and development, manufacturing, and supply chain. In addition, in recent years, Chinese companies have made technological breakthroughs in the fields of motors, batteries, and controllers, and have the ability to develop and produce E-bikes. soil.

In the past two years, many E-bike brands have been born, and capital has also come in.

According to IT Juzi data, at least four Chinese E-bike startups will complete financing in 2022. In addition to TENWAYS, in February, URTOPIA completed a Pre-A round of financing of nearly 10 million US dollars, jointly led by Lightspeed China and DCM, and its products are mainly for the European and American markets.

In March, E-Bike brand Aventon announced the completion of the first round of financing of tens of millions of dollars, exclusively invested by Gaorong Capital. In November, according to The Information, Sequoia Capital (China) invested in it, and this investment will make the company's valuation reach 590 million US dollars. Although this is an American electric bicycle brand, its founder Zhang Jianwei is a Chinese. He was born in Yongkang, Zhejiang, the capital of the hardware industry.

In July, Guochao motorcycle brand SURPANDA received millions of yuan in angel round financing, led by Hangzhou Changjiang Venture Capital. Its main channels cover first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and its overseas channels cover Singapore, Malaysia and other countries.

In addition to entrepreneurial projects, long-established brands such as Jiuqi Stock and Shanghai Phoenix are also deploying E-bike products.

Overseas, E-bike has also attracted much attention.

"Old bicycle drivers" such as Giant, Specialized, and Marin have successively launched electric-assisted bicycle models to carry out product innovation and brand upgrading.

Even car manufacturers are eyeing this track. Tesla, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, etc. are all betting on the E-bike track. Among them, Tesla has released a conceptual E-bike; Porsche is "buy, buy, buy" in the E-bike field. At the end of the year, it acquired a major stake in the Croatian electric bicycle brand Grey.p. In 2022, it announced a wholly-owned acquisition of the German electric bicycle manufacturer Fazua; both BMW and Mercedes-Benz have launched special edition electric bicycles.

Overseas electric bicycle brands are also favored by capital. In August 2021, Hillhouse led the US$128 million round C financing of the Dutch E-bike brand VanMoof, which is known as the "Tesla of the electric bicycle industry".

The Belgian electric bicycle start-up brand Cowboy received 23 million euros in 2020 from Exor Seeds, an early-stage investment fund owned by the Italian Agnelli family.

Two German E-bike brands such as DANCE and LEMO will also complete a new round of financing in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Some people believe that with perfect labels such as "carbon neutrality + short-distance travel + consumer technology + smart hardware + going to sea", E-bike is obviously an investment hotspot that cannot be ignored.

When investing in URTOPIA, Zhang Yichen, executive director of Lightspeed China, said that in the past two years, electric bicycles have gradually replaced cars, motorcycles and ordinary bicycles in the European and American markets. More users are enjoying the fun of riding while being low-carbon. Traveling is beneficial to the environment.

Zeng Zhenyu, managing partner of DCM, also believes that cycling is an expression of attitude towards life. "Especially in the context of the epidemic, for health and safety reasons, more and more people have begun to use bicycles and electric bicycles to travel and find the joy of riding."

Zeng Zhenyu is particularly optimistic about China's E-bike brand. He said: "China is known as the kingdom of bicycles. We have a mature bicycle industry foundation and a world-leading intelligent hardware industry cluster. Growing up in China, we have independent innovation capabilities and Willing’s e-bike brand is fully capable of serving consumers around the world.”