The archive · Hardware & Devices · Product decision · 2024–2026
OMOWAY bets Xpeng-grade tech on Indonesia's e-motorcycles: Series A, first deliveries
Ex-Xpeng co-founder He Tao's OMOWAY bets Indonesia's 120M riders will switch to an automotive-grade smart e-motorcycle; first deliveries began June 2026.
OMOWAY
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.
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.
Background
OMOWAY was founded in July 2024 by Todd He, an original co-founder of XPeng Motors, and John Jiao, a former XPeng vice president, with a team drawn from XPeng's autonomous driving and design units plus Vivo's Indonesia operations. Their bet: Indonesia, the world's third-largest motorcycle market with over 120 million bikes — roughly one for every two people — would switch to a smart electric motorcycle carrying automotive-grade technology.
Before building, the team spent a year studying Java's urban and rural roads and interviewing dealers and riders who commute and travel four to five hours each way; OMOWAY concluded the heavy-duty electric motorcycle segment lacked a serious contender. It set up Guangzhou R&D and Jakarta production, raised seed and angel rounds totaling an eight-figure USD sum led by ZhenFund, HongShan and Hui Capital, and debuted the OMO-X prototype in Jakarta in June 2025 with self-balancing, adaptive cruise, summon and collision-assist braking.
The production OMO-X went on sale in Indonesia in 2026. By June 2026 OMOWAY had closed Series A and A+ rounds — each tens of millions of dollars, with CATL-backed Lochpine Capital leading the A+ — started the world's first OMO-X deliveries in Indonesia, and led the country's monthly e-motorcycle order rankings in its first month, per Dealroom.
The bet is still unproven at scale: Japanese petrol brands still dominate, and self-balancing tech had to survive the trip from prototype to mass production. But the early demand signal, plus strategic money from XPeng's Rockets Capital, CATL's Lochpine and a BYD co-founder's fund, shows China's EV supply chain treating two-wheelers as the next frontier.
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.
Sources
- Former Xpeng execs launch Omo X smart e-motorbike in Indonesia
- Ex-XPeng Team Unveils 'Two-Wheeled Tesla' in Indonesia: OMOWAY Launches Auto-Grade Smart E-Motorcycle
- OMOWAY closes Series A as OMO-X starts global deliveries
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