Lightning Motorcycle

Headlines abound with stories about electric cars and trucks. But what about electric motorcycles?

Lightning Motorcycle, a transportation company creating a lineup of electric bikes, is making it happen.

This is a huge opportunity. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global motorcycle market was valued at more than seventy-five billion dollars in 2022. And the global electric-vehicle market was valued at $384 billion last year.

To roll out its motorcycles, Lightning will first release the LS-218, a luxury bike catered toward higher-income earners. The company projects to sell about 500 of these units a year.

From there, it’ll release the Strike, an electric sport bike. Overall production aims to jump to 60,000 bikes a year. Finally, the company will release the Spark, an electric bike for those commuting in urban environments. That will pave the way for a fourth bike with mass-market appeal. By this time, Lightning aims to produce 250,000 units a year.

Lightning has been generating revenue since 2020.

Team Background

Jojo Hatfield - Co-Founder & COO

Jojo has an extensive background in supply-chain logistics and program management.

Most recently, she was a senior technical program manager with Dell, a computer company. Before that, she was a project manager with Efficient Frontier, a performance-management platform for advertising clients.

Earlier in her career, she was a senior project manager with eBay, an online retail marketplace. Prior to that, she was a senior IT project manager with eTrade, a financial-services company.

Jojo founded Aion Technology, a company that created a supply-chain management system. She began her career as a program manager with Philips, a conglomerate manufacturing everything from electronics to medical devices.

She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from San Francisco State University, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from UC Santa Barbara, and an MBA from Purdue University.

Richard Keller - Head of Electrical Engineering

Prior to joining Lightning, Richard was President of a consulting firm which focused on switching power-supply design in Silicon Valley. Before that, he held technical-engineering positions at Power Integrations, an electronic-component manufacturing company, Boschert, an industrial-manufacturing business, and Ford Aerospace, the defense division of Ford Motor Company.

Richard holds a Bachelor’s degree from California Polytechnic University, Pomona and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Santa Clara.

Dave Swock - Head of Sales

Dave began his career as a test driver for General Motors, before becoming Director of Sales with XLGraphics, an Arizona-based graphics and design company. He then was Sales Director with Power Technology Ventures, a company creating batteries and charging technologies.

More recently, Dave was Business Development Manager with Remy International, a vehicle-manufacturing company. He spent five years there before joining Lightning Motorcycle in 2015.

Richard Hatfield - Co-Founder & CEO

Richard’s interest in electric vehicles started in the late 1990s, when he joined the electric division of automaker Porsche. From there, he started Lightning Motorcycle in 2009.

He spent more than twenty years as an amateur racecar driver, and has deep knowledge of battery technologies and pack design.

Richard has been a member of the Electric Auto Association for nearly twenty years and studied at Grinnell College.

Co-Investors