Entering the Car-Ebike niche market, "Dayu Technology" obtains seed round financing | HardcoreTech First Report

Text | Hu Yiting

Editor | Yuan Silai

HardcoreTech has learned that recently, Dayu Technology (Taizhou Dayu Technology Co., Ltd.), a brand of three and four-wheel semi-enclosed electric power-assisted bicycles (Car-Ebike), has completed a seed round of financing, with a post-financing valuation of tens of millions of yuan. This round of financing is exclusively invested by TusStar, and the funds will be used for the manufacturing and testing of the second-generation prototype. Mush Capital serves as the exclusive financial advisor.

Dayu Technology was established in 2023 and is from Taizhou, Zhejiang. Its main product is the Car-Ebike, a short-distance urban travel tool. The first-generation product is equipped with a flexible solar panel and an AI assistant, uses non-inflatable and inner-tube-free tires, and can be remotely controlled via an APP, with a cruising range of 120 kilometers. It is targeted at the European and American markets and can be used for shared travel and household shopping; in China, it can be applied to scenarios such as scenic area bike rental and the last-mile commute.

Dayu Technology's first four-wheel semi-enclosed Car-Ebike model "MARK-1" is expected to be officially released in October this year and will launch a crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo platform.

Dayu Technology's four-wheel semi-enclosed Car-Ebike model, Image source: The enterprise

In recent years, the global Ebike market has experienced explosive growth. Allied Market Research predicts that by 2030, the global Ebike market size will reach 118.6 billion US dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 10%. Currently, Ebikes that focus on subdivided track have also emerged, such as E-cargo bikes that can be used for freight transportation and the three or four-wheel Car-Ebikes that Dayu Technology has entered.

At present, most global Car-Ebike manufacturers are mainly from Europe and the United States. Well-known brands include Veemo (acquired by ENVO, a leading Ebike company in North America), CityQ (Norway), etc., and the unit price of their products ranges from 6,000 to tens of thousands of euros. Compared with Ebikes, Car-Ebikes are designed with a semi-enclosed skylight, leaving more storage or passenger space, and have higher requirements for carrying performance.

Dayu Technology's Car-Ebike is equipped with a flexible solar panel on the top, which can be combined with the battery to reduce the number of charges. Currently, the panel power is about 100wh. The flexible design enables it to adapt to low-light environments and complete a 6-8 hour charge in cloudy or sunny weather, so the battery only needs to be charged once a month.

In addition, due to the high maintenance cost abroad, Dayu Technology uses non-inflatable and inner-tube-free tires made of rubber material. With multiple cavities inside to increase the shock absorption performance, it can also improve the durability of the tires.

Car-Ebike is a subdivided category of the Ebike track. Feng Jianwei, the founder and CEO of Dayu Technology, told HardcoreTech that the comprehensive costs such as labor in overseas are high, and the existing Car-Ebike products are priced high, suppressing the consumption potential. Relying on the domestic supporting system and cost advantage, the expected price of Dayu Technology's Car-Ebike will drop to less than 4,000 euros.

In terms of market layout, unlike most Ebike manufacturers that only target overseas markets, Dayu Technology will promote its Car-Ebike in China through online channels such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, as well as offline directly operated or authorized stores. At the same time, for its tourism B-end customers such as domestic scenic spots and resort hotels, it will adopt a profit-sharing cooperation form to attract orders. Currently, Dayu Technology has obtained 5,000 potential orders from two scenic area bike rental companies, "Qingdao Juwei" and "Zhejiang Chida".

In terms of the team, Feng Jianwei, CTO Jiang Hui, and CMO Yang Qingpo are all from Zhejiang Douha Technology Co., Ltd., and have many years of experience in the research and development and market expansion of electric motorcycles.

Investor's perspective:

Yao Linling, the person in charge of the Southeast Zhejiang Innovation Center of TusStar, said: As one of the domestic E-Bike industrial clusters, Zhejiang has given birth to many leading companies in the subdivided track of two-wheel E-Bikes, such as Jiuqi Co., Ltd. (300994), URTOPIA, Aventon, and Onemile. The core team of Dayu Technology comes from a leading domestic shared electric vehicle company and has a complete design and development system and rich design experience for appearance styling, frame structure, plastic part structure, and three-electric system. It is believed that Dayu Technology will quickly grow into a leading player in the Car-Ebike subdivided track.

Zhang Chenming, a partner of Mush Capital, said: Although the growth trend of the E-Bike market has slowed down in the past two years, and the market has a greater pressure to destock. But at the same time, we can see that the small and medium-sized players in the red ocean market of two-wheel E-Bikes are gradually being cleared out by the market. The leading enterprises of two-wheel E-Bikes are still favored by the capital market. From 2022 to 2023, six two-wheel E-Bike enterprises have obtained tens of millions of financing, and three of them have obtained tens of millions of financing again in 2024. Their common feature is that they have made bold innovations in their respective subdivided track. The Car-Ebike track that Dayu Technology is deeply cultivating currently has no competitors in China, and overseas competitors are still in the growth stage. Facing the huge global Car-Ebike blue ocean market, the future is promising.