Xiaomi's CEO invests in an electric bike start-up

This electric-powered two-wheeler is a neatly designed smart bike that connects with an app. The startup just nabbed series A funding, reports Tech in Asia

Electric bikes are no longer the preferred way of getting around China’s cities. People are moving onto cars. The bike lanes are getting a bit less frenetically elbow-to-elbow as the roads fill up instead with gas-guzzlers that add to the polluted skylines. Yes, more e-bikes than cars are sold each year in China and there are more than 200 million e-bikes scattered across the nation, but cars have now won over the hearts of Chinese consumers.

So it seems an odd time for a Chinese start-up to be building a fledgling business that specialises in electric scooters. But what YunMake has created isn’t a normal electric-powered two-wheeler – it’s a radically designed smart bike that connects with an app. 

The start-up team behind the Yunbike got together in 2013 and unveiled the X1 a year later. The team announced over the weekend that it has secured an undisclosed amount of series A funding. The latest funding was led by Shunwei Capital, the VC firm started by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun – which also led an earlier $1.6 million seed round. The other series A investors include Qualcomm Ventures, ZhenFund, and Foxconn.

There’s no word on any tie-up between Xiaomi and the Yunbike crew aside from Xiaomi phones popping up in the smart scooter’s promotional photos.

The Yunbike X1 weighs 16kg and can hit 25km/h, which is as fast as you’ll want to go on those tiny wheels with weedy rubber brake pads. It can go 25 kilometers on a single charge. It has a small LED readout screen, but for the full smart bike experience you’ll probably want to attach your smartphone and keep the Yunbike app open on it. The battery packs 36v/6.6AH and takes four hours to charge fully.

This is an edited excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can access the full article here.