What the business is
A maker of smart electric motorcycles — founded by ex-Xpeng Motors leadership — that puts automotive-grade tech (self-balancing, collision-assist braking, adaptive cruise) on two wheels, starting in Indonesia.
The bet
That Indonesia's 120M riders will switch from Japanese petrol bikes to an automotive-grade smart e-motorcycle built locally.
Starting capital
Seed and angel rounds totaling an eight-figure USD sum, led by ZhenFund, HongShan (Sequoia China) and Hui Capital; Series A and A+ each raised tens of millions of dollars.
How it started
Founded in July 2024 by Todd He (original co-founder of XPeng Motors) and John Jiao (former XPeng VP), OMOWAY assembled a cross-industry team — including Xpeng's ex-autonomous-driving head, the P7 design director and the former head of Vivo Indonesia — and ran a year-long market study across Java, interviewing dealers and users. It kept two headquarters: Guangzhou for R&D, Jakarta for production and sales, and chose Indonesia as its global launchpad.
What happened
On June 20, 2025, OMOWAY debuted the OMO-X prototype in Jakarta — it drove itself onto the stage — with HALO Pilot vision-based self-balancing, adaptive cruise, one-touch parking, summon and collision-assist braking. Seed and angel rounds totaling an eight-figure USD sum closed, led by ZhenFund, HongShan and Hui Capital (founded by a BYD co-founder). The production OMO-X launched in Indonesia in 2026: pre-orders from late April, market debut in May–June. In June 2026 OMOWAY closed Series A and A+ rounds, each tens of millions of dollars, with CATL-backed Lochpine Capital leading the A+, began the world's first OMO-X deliveries in Indonesia, and topped the country's monthly e-motorcycle order rankings in its first month.
How it ended up
Still running and expanding: as of June 2026, OMOWAY had closed Series A and A+ funding, started OMO-X deliveries in Indonesia, and led monthly e-motorcycle orders there, with Thailand and Europe planned next.
What has to be true
Indonesia is the world's third-largest motorcycle market with 120M+ bikes; petrol holds over 96% of sales and e-motorcycle sales grew nearly 400% in 2024 — a window incumbents cannot rush.
OMOWAY transplanted automotive-grade ADAS — self-balancing, adaptive cruise, collision-assist braking, summon — onto two wheels, which no serious competitor offered in the heavy-duty segment.
A year of field research across Java plus Jakarta production and dealer partnerships made the product fit real usage: long commutes, cargo and weekend travel, not short-range student scooters.
Strategic backers — XPeng's Rockets Capital, CATL's Lochpine, BYD co-founder's Hui Capital — signal supply-chain support that a hardware startup needs to scale.
What can be applied
Where incumbents own 96% of a market, newcomers win by attacking the transition itself: automotive-grade intelligence, local manufacturing and dealer trust, not a cheaper petrol clone.
Aftermath
As of July 2026, OMOWAY is live and expanding: OMO-X deliveries began in Indonesia in June 2026, the company led the country's monthly e-motorcycle order rankings in its first month, and Series A and A+ rounds closed (each tens of millions of dollars), with CATL-backed Lochpine Capital leading the A+ and existing backer ZhenFund following on. Thailand and Europe are next. The open questions are unit economics — self-balancing took hundreds of user studies and thousands of component iterations to mass-produce — and whether it can dent the Japanese petrol incumbents' 96% share.
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