Temasek invests $403.2 mil in electric scooter maker

(Sept 20): Gogoro, an electric scooter-maker backed by Panasonic, raised US$300 million ($403.2 million) from Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and other investors to pay for expansion and research and development.

Generation Investment Management, co-founded by Al Gore, Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., and French utility Engie SA, also invested. The new funding brings the Taiwan-based startup’s valuation to about US$800 million, including the new cash injection, according to a person familiar with the matter. That’s double the level when it last raised in 2015, the person said.

Founded in 2011 by Horace Luke and Matt Taylor, former executives at HTC Corp., Gogoro plans to use the investment to expand into more cities. The company started selling its scooters in Taiwan in 2015. It’s sold more than 30,000 scooters so far and built more than 400 stations for riders to swap used batteries for charged ones.

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