Premium EV motorcycle start-up Raptee on Tuesday said it has raised  $3 million in a pre-Series A funding round. The all-equity funding round led by deep-tech VC fund BlueHill Capital, also saw participation from industry stalwarts as well as HNIs, the start-up said in a statement. 

The funds will be utilised for augmenting the manufacturing facility, acquiring machinery, tooling for the soon-to-be-launched motorcycle, and scaling up the team, it said. 

"This is our first institutional round. We want to launch a motorcycle in a mid-premium segment. We are extremely fortunate to be backed by investors from the manufacturing and transportation industries who understand long-term value creation and can add strategic value for us as we gear up for production and scale up," said Dinesh Arjun, co-founder-CEO of Raptee. 

Raptee is a full stack electric motorcycle manufacturer. Its first motorcycle is expected to come in early 2024, with two experience centres in Chennai and Bengaluru. The EV start-up subsequently plans to expand to eight more cities, as per the statement. 

In March this year, Raptee received a grant from ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India), for design and development of the high-voltage powertrain.