Beam, a Singaporean shared micromobility operator, introduced in the present day that it has raised $93 million in a Series B spherical to speed up progress into new nations in Asia.
The recent capital, which brings its complete funding raised to $135 million, was led by Affirma Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital India, Hana Ventures, ICT Capital, EDB Investment (EDBI), AC Ventures, RTP Global and Momentum Venture Capital. The Series B brings Beam’s valuation up into the triple digits, says CEO and co-founder of Beam Alan Jiang who declined to offer precise numbers.
Beam, which presently operates e-scooters and e-bikes in 35 cities throughout Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, goals to unfold into markets like Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Turkey.
In addition, the new capital will allow Beam to spur its deployment of a new fifth era Beam Saturn e-scooter, which the corporate intends to begin rolling out within the second half of this 12 months. The next-gen scooter will include an up to date model of Beam’s security platform, dubbed Micromobility Augmented Riding Safety (MARS), that helps defend pedestrians and improve native governments’ management over the place e-vehicles can park or experience, says Jiang.
Existing applied sciences throughout the platform embody useless reckoning and on-edge geofencing, however the fifth gen Saturns could have a function known as Beam Pedestrian Shield, ” an onboard AI digicam that may immediately and precisely detect pedestrians to forestall collisions and detect footpaths to mechanically cut back car velocity and even forestall using utterly,” in accordance with Deb Gangopadhyay, chief expertise officer of Beam.
Beam says its on-board digicam with pc imaginative and prescient will probably be rolling out at scale by Q3 this 12 months. The firm initially could be piloting the onboard digicam expertise, which is developed in collaboration with its undisclosed R&D accomplice, and expects to scale up, a spokesperson at Beam advised TechCrunch.
For instance, American micromobility firm Spin is working with Drover AI, a pc imaginative and prescient startup, to pilot camera-based security programs in a number of markets, and European operator Voi is doing the identical with Luna within the U.Ok.
New tech apart, the Saturn will even function 12-inch wheels which might be 20% bigger than the common e-scooter wheels mixed with hydraulic suspension. The Saturn has totally swappable batteries with ample capability for 110km of using vary, double the common e-scooter battery capability, to additional enhance sustainability, in accordance with the corporate.
Beam additionally plans so as to add a new e-moped to its car portfolio, the Beam Pluto, within the second half of this 12 months, and expects e-mopeds to comprise as much as one-third of its fleet over the subsequent two years, Jiang mentioned in an electronic mail interview.
Beam’s income has seen 15 occasions progress since 2020, says Jiang, regardless of experiencing mobility restrictions attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic, however the CEO didn’t present a baseline for that progress. When requested about tightening laws on micromobility in some Asian nations, Jiang advised TechCrunch that Beam works very carefully with regulators in all geographies the corporate operates in to offer secure and sustainable shared micromobility and Beam rebalances car belongings between geographies relying on deployment alternatives. Micromobility is broadly being acknowledged as an indispensable mode of transport nearly throughout Asia, with the corresponding regulatory frameworks getting extra mature, he famous.
“Our goal is to shift ‘single person journeys’ onto shared small electric vehicles, which are step function more environmentally friendly for cities and cost-efficient for consumers,”Jiang advised TechCrunch.
This article has been up to date to mirror new info from Beam.