Singapore-based Micromobility Firm Beam Secures $93 Million Series B
Singapore-based micromobility firm Beam secures $93 million Series B
Beam, a Singapore-based operator of shared micromobility, announced today that it has secured $93 million in a Series B investment to accelerate its expansion into additional Asian markets.
The new fundraising round, led by Affirma Capital, brings the company's total funding to $135 million, with participation from Sequoia Capital India, Hana Ventures, ICT Capital, EDB Investment (EDBI), AC Ventures, RTP Global, and Momentum Venture Capital. The company has raised a total of $135 million to date. According to Alan Jiang, CEO and co-founder of Beam, the Series B raises the company's worth to the triple digits. He did not disclose exact valuation statistics though.
As part of its global expansion strategy, Beam, which already operates e-scooters and e-bikes in 35 cities across Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand aims to expand into new markets such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Turkey.
What else is Beam Capable of?
Beam will also be able to speed the deployment of its new fifth-generation Beam Saturn e-scooter, which the company hopes to commence in the second half of this year as a result of the additional investment. According to Jiang, the next-generation scooter will have an upgraded version of Beam's safety platform, named Micromobility Augmented Riding Safety (MARS), which will assist protect pedestrians and allow local governments greater control over where e-vehicles can park or ride.
A feature called Beam Pedestrian Shield, which is described as "an onboard AI camera that can instantly and accurately detect pedestrians to avoid collisions and detect footpaths to automatically reduce vehicle speed or even prevent riding altogether," will be added to the platform, which already includes dead reckoning and on-edge geofencing.
It is anticipated that Beam would commence mass manufacturing of its on-board camera with computer vision in the third quarter of this year. A Beam representative told TechCrunch that the business will initially test the onboard camera technology, which was created in partnership with an unknown research and development partner, in order to determine its viability.
For example, the American micromobility company Spin is cooperating with computer vision startup Drover AI to pilot camera-based safety systems in a number of countries, while the European operator Voi is collaborating with Luna in the UK.
Apart from the new technology, the Saturn will include 12-inch wheels that are 20 percent larger than conventional e-scooter wheels, as well as hydraulic suspension. According to the company, the Saturn has completely interchangeable batteries with a capacity of 110 kilometers of riding range, which is double the capacity of the typical e-scooter battery. This further improves sustainability.
Additionally, Beam plans to introduce a new e-moped, the Beam Pluto, in the second half of this year and anticipates that e-mopeds will account for up to one-third of its fleet over the next two years, Jiang said in an email interview.
In Conclusion
As of 2020, despite mobility constraints created by the Covid-19 pandemic, Beam's revenue has climbed 15-fold, according to Jiang. However, the CEO did not provide a baseline for that expansion. To the question of whether some Asian countries are enacting stricter regulations on micromobility, Jiang stated to TechCrunch that Beam works in close collaboration with regulators in all geographies in which the company operates to ensure safe and sustainable shared micromobility. He also stated that the company rebalances vehicle assets across geographies in response to deployment opportunities. Micromobility is widely recognized as a required mode of transportation throughout virtually all of Asia, according to him, and the legislative structures that support it are becoming more mature.
