Electric motorcycle designer and manufacturer Brammo announced today completion of a $28 million round of series B financing, that also sees powersports manufacturer Polaris come on-board with a minority ownership stake. The move is described as establishing Polaris as a business partner and part owner of Brammo, allowing Polaris numerous exciting opportunities to pair Brammo's proven electric drive train technology with Polaris's proven powersports products.
Brammo is an Ashland Oregon based electric motorcycle company, founded in 2002. Today they have quite a bit of interesting developments afoot:
- Today they sell a highly regarded motorcycle, the Enertia, which offers speeds up to 60 miles/hr and range up to 80 miles.
- In 2012 they intend to launch three new models, a high performance street bike (Empulse), and two bikes targeted at the off-road market (Engage and Encite).
- They are in the process of working with contract manufacturer Flextronics to launch production at plants in Hungary and Germany, with an eye on global sales of their motorcycles.
- They recently announced plans to develop BrammoParx as places to enjoy riding off-road electric motorcycle riding parks
- In the meantime they have raced their motorcycles in both the TTXGP, winning the 2011 North American Campionship, and in an exhibition race of off-road electric motorcycles known as the Energy CrisisCross.
- They also announced an agreement with Mavizen to provide the Empulse TTX to prospective TTXGP race teams
Polaris is a large powersports company with a global market presence, and over a billion dollars in annual sales of off-road ATV's, motorcycles, and even street-legal low speed electric vehicles. Their market segments are snowmobiles, ATV's, motorcycles, neighborhood electric vehicles, and ruggedized "Defense" versions of their ATV's.
They currently sell two kinds of low-speed electric vehicles:
- An ATV-style street-legal "low speed vehicle", the Polaris EV LSV, that's essentially one of their off-road vehicles with turn signals and rear view mirrors. They also offer a Defense version of this vehicle.
- Golf-cart style NEV's through their acquisition of Global Electric Motors (GEM)
The companies are promising to work together to develop further electric vehicles by pairing Brammo's drive train technology with Polaris's vehicles.
Polaris, as noted on the Brammofan blog (a.k.a. Harry Malin), is a financially strong company with over 18 quarters of strong sales growth. The Brammofan blog has also been reading Brammo's SEC filings and noted their existing investor base includes Best Buy (who holds a part ownership stake from the series A financing round), Chrysalix Energy, and David Kurtz of Alpine Energy. Today's announcement adds NorthPoint Investments to the group.
"We are excited to advance our electric vehicle capability by establishing Polaris as a business partner and part owner of Brammo, one of the most innovative and aggressive companies I have found in the electric motorcycle space,” said Scott Wine, Polaris CEO. "Our companies share a passion for performance, and I look forward to exploiting the numerous opportunities created by pairing Brammo’s industry-leading electric powertrain technology with Polaris’s vast array of market-leading powersports products. This is a small but important investment for Polaris in an electric vehicle market that we feel is poised for significant growth.”
"We are excited to add Polaris Industries as a valued strategic partner. Brammo and its partners are combining forces to gain dominance in the EV powersports market,” said Brammo, Inc., Founder and CEO Craig Bramscher. "We now have the ability to maintain our high standards of quality while we innovate and commercialize at speed, and this enables us to better serve our customers and build a sustainable advantage. Polaris is the clear leader in powersports and our manufacturing partner, Flextronics, is a global leader in electronics manufacturing. Our products are the synthesis of powersports and electronics. Polaris and Flextronics present the best possible partners to help Brammo achieve the scale and prolific product development plans we have for the coming years.”
We see this and immediately dream of electric snowmobiles, electric ATV's, and even electric cruiser style motorcycles. So far the electric motorcycle industry has addressed only the race style bikes, not the cruiser style, leaving a significant market segment unfulfilled. But we also see the potential synergy of Brammo teaming up with a company who already has a global presence, and that perhaps Polaris' dealer network will soon have the option to carry Brammo's electric motorcycles.
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