Srikanth
Premium EV motorcycle Startup Raptee has announced the appointment of Mr Jayapradeep V as the Chief Business Officer. JP, who comes with over 25 years of experience, has worked with Royal Enfield for 15 years as their Business Head for India and Saarc region. JP has been credited with leading Royal Enfield’s premium distribution and commanding a market share of over 25% in the 150+ CC segment in India.
At Raptee, JP’s focus would be on establishing the brand as a premium motorcycle across the 2W category. JP will also be focusing on designing and delivering the customer experience for an effortless ownership, strategize and execute pan India and international network. He will also be providing strategic support to the overall organisational development.
Commenting on JP’s appointment, Dinesh Arjun, Founder, CEO, Raptee, says, “JP joins Raptee just as we reach a critical inflection point. We are transitioning from being a small technology outfit to an OEM. We intend to build a brand that does justice to the state-of-the-art tech that the team at Raptee has built over the last three years. I believe JP brings the experience of building an excellent motorcycle brand and the understanding of how crucial it is to accomplish so while being frugal and lean. Moreover, with senior leadership, cultural fit is extremely important, and his MO of being very hands-on and working at ground zero is very much in line with how we work at Raptee. We’re super thrilled to have him on board, and I’m personally looking forward to building Raptee alongside him.”
The Company aims to offer its customers a premium experience with their cutting-edge technology products and passionate people to make mobility effortless, smart and safe. JP, a well-respected and domain expert in the automotive industry is the right fit to empower Raptee to build themselves as a premium brand in the emerging EV market. JP has led several strategic initiatives at Royal Enfield and he was instrumental in developing the Network expansion strategy. He led a sizable portion of RE’s dealer expansion drive, including the Studio format expansion. This first-of-its-kind industry project was regarded as a successful RE initiative for boosting market share in India’s remote rural areas. During the time of RE’s significant transition, he was in charge of the Brand Retail Identity implementation and customer experience automation projects. JP played a crucial role in developing the structured Retail finance tie-ups and offerings for consumers partnering with all the major banks and NBFCs. Under his leadership, RE achieved the highest-ever monthly sales in October 2022 and a growth of 63% till November 2022 and improved the market share to 6.7% from 4.9%.
Commenting on his appointment, Jayapradeep, Chief Business Officer, Raptee, says, “India being the major player in the Global auto industry, the Indian 2-wheeler segment has to lead the transformation to the EV segment to create a global impact. While the EV penetration in the scooter segment has crossed 10% and is growing, the EV penetration in the Motorcycle segment, which is almost 2 times of the scooter segment, is yet to see any traction, with not many players in the segment. This brings Raptee an opportunity to be the leader in the EV transformation by offering technologically advanced motorcycles with first-of-its-kind features in E2W and helping consumers upgrade from their ICE to EV effortlessly. I am really happy to be working with a very young team at Raptee, designing and developing motorcycles for the young generation consumers.”
Raptee is slated to unveil its range of revolutionary electric motorcycles by the end of this year. The company plans to set up its first plant near Chennai. The team has designed a state of the art motorcycle that comes with no fuss, no part replacement, and low maintenance. An independently designed vehicle meant to stay in shape for times to come so you can sit back, unwind and let the motorcycle take care of itself. The premium bikes will be built to be intuitive and intelligent, with features like throttle mapping, blind-spot detection, and Bluetooth connectivity to keep you safe and sound at all times.
