The company said it has raised $93 million in a Series B round to accelerate growth into new countries in Asia.
The fresh capital was led by Affirma Capital, with participation from other companies. Alan Jiang, CEO and co-founder of Beam, said that the Series B brings the company's valuation up into the triple digits.
Beam, which currently operates e-scooters and e-bikes in 35 cities across Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, aims to spread into markets like Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Turkey.
The new capital will allow Beam to deploy a new 5th generation Beam Saturn e-scooter in the second half of this year. The next-gen scooter will come with an updated version of Beam's safety platform that helps protect pedestrians and enhance local governments' control over where e-vehicles can park or ride.
The 5th Gen Saturns will have a feature called Beam Pedestrian Shield, an onboard artificial intelligence camera that can instantly and accurately detect pedestrians to prevent accidents and reduce vehicle speed.
The on-board camera with computer vision will be rolling out at scale by Q3 this year, but it did not respond to queries in time as to whether it would be on all Gen 5s or if they would be piloting the tech in specific areas. The company did not respond to requests for clarification as to whether or not the Pedestrian Shield is built in-house or if Beam is working with a supplier.
Spin, an American micromobility company, is working with Drover, a computer vision startup, to pilot camera-based safety systems in a few markets, and Voi, a European operator, is working with Luna, a computer vision startup, to pilot camera-based safety systems in the U
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The 12-inch wheels on the Saturn are 20% larger than the average e-scooter wheels, and they will feature a new tech. The company claims that the Saturn has double the average e-scooter battery capacity to further improve the environment.
In the second half of this year, Beam will introduce a new e-moped, the Beam Pluto, which will comprise up to one-third of its fleet over the next two years, Jiang said in an email interview.
MARS technology is used.
The CEO didn't provide a baseline for that growth despite the fact that Beam's revenue has seen 15 times growth since 2020. Jiang said that Beam works very closely with regulators in all of the company's countries to provide safe and sustainable shared micromobility. He noted that micromobility is being seen as an indispensable mode of transport, with the regulatory frameworks getting more mature.
The goal is to shift single person journeys onto shared small electric vehicles, which are more eco-friendly for cities and cheaper for consumers.
New information from Beam has been added to the article.
Singapore’s micromobility startup Beam raises $26 million
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