Delfast founder and CEO Daniel Tonkopi talks e-bikes in Ukraine and managing remotely throughout a navy invasion.
When Daniel Tonkopi based Delfast in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2014, he had no intention of constructing and promoting electrical bikes. He additionally by no means anticipated that his firm can be caught up in a struggle with Russia or that his bikes would develop into navy autos. However at 43, Tonkopi, a local of Almaty, Kazakhstan, now finds himself dwelling in Los Angeles, operating an e-bike firm and remotely managing dozens of staff dwelling in a struggle zone. In Could, Tonkopi made headlines when he shared photographs on Fb of Ukrainian fighters utilizing Delfast bikes to hold anti-tank weapons to the entrance, demonstrating one more use case for electrified two-wheelers.
“Our bikes are nonetheless working regardless of damages,” he instructed me on a video name earlier this month.
Tonkopi moved to Ukraine from Kazakhstan in 2009. He’d been working for KazMunayGas, the state-owned oil and gasoline firm, as a challenge supervisor constructing gasoline stations when he determined to go to Kyiv to attempt his hand as an entrepreneur. The vogue on the time was to construct clones of profitable U.S. tech corporations, so Tonkopi made a model of Yelp for Jap Europe. It was, by his personal admission, a flop, as have been a number of makes an attempt that got here after. “I turned an knowledgeable in all of the potential errors and the right way to not make a startup,” he says.
Delfast started as a one-hour supply firm. (The identify is brief for “we ship quick.”) Tonkopi needed to make use of e-bikes for the service as a result of they have been low cost, fast, zero-emissions and didn’t require couriers to pedal for hours on finish. When he couldn’t discover bikes with lengthy sufficient battery life to work all day, he determined to attempt constructing his personal. His Frankenstein creations turned heads. “We heard numerous asks from random individuals. ‘Hey, are you promoting these bikes?’” he says. So, in 2017, Delfast launched a crowdfunding marketing campaign, raised $165,000 and bought 44 e-bikes.
Over the subsequent three years, Delfast functioned each as a courier firm and an internet e-bike store. In 2020, a couple of days after Covid lockdowns started, Tonkopi bought the supply enterprise to a direct-to-consumer meat vendor in Ukraine. Delfast now sells a single e-bike mannequin, the Prime 3.0, through its web site and a small community of unbiased bike retailers. It has a high pace of fifty miles per hour, a variety of as much as 200 miles and a sticker worth of $6,999. Final yr, Delfast bought about 200 models, largely to clients within the US. To this point this yr, says Tonkopi, gross sales are operating at triple that tempo.
Final fall, after realizing that 80% of the corporate’s clients have been within the US, Delfast opened an workplace in Whittier, California, exterior Los Angeles, the place Tonkopi and some others work. The remaining 30 staff are nonetheless in Ukraine. Tonkopi spoke with Bloomberg about e-bikes as weapons, managing a startup by way of struggle, and the Delfast product pipeline. The dialog has been edited for readability and size. You have bought 30 or so individuals in Ukraine. How have you ever managed that workforce because the struggle started? Ranging from February twenty fourth, these have been powerful weeks, particularly the primary week, once we didn’t know what was occurring and what to do. We had some monetary reserves, sufficient for 3 months of wage for all our personnel, so we instructed everyone, ‘You don’t have to fret, you’ll have your wage it doesn’t matter what, not less than for 3 months.’
And we offered a few of them with help to relocate. We discovered some homes and flats in safer locations. For instance, one lady used to reside in Kherson, a metropolis absolutely occupied by Russia. At one level, Russian police or navy forces got here to her home. They requested her to point out them her smartphone, her laptop computer and so forth. They discovered anti-Russian messages and memes in her cellphone. In order that they deleted all the data in her cellphone and stated, ‘Okay, now your smartphone can have a brand new life. And you’ll come to our police station tomorrow at 11 a.m. And you’ll have new life as effectively.’ That was actually scary. She didn’t need to have any type of new life with Russia. So certainly one of our gross sales supervisor helped to search out her a automobile in Kherson and to flee. She left to Odessa that night time. Odessa is beneath assault as effectively. There isn’t a secure place in Ukraine, but it surely’s comparatively safer. Are individuals now in a position to do their jobs? Sure. That was the primary weeks. Individuals are nonetheless sitting in bomb shelters. They reside of their flats or homes however once they hear air-raid sirens, they’ve to enter bomb shelters. It’s fixed bombing. Each Monday begins with a Zoom name with everybody, we ask them how they’re, if they’re secure, what’s occurring, after which we transfer on to our standard enterprise points.
What’s loopy is that through the struggle, our engineers have developed a very new product. They have been uninterested in sitting within the basement and bored with being afraid, and so they needed to maneuver their power and inspiration into one thing new. They usually created a brand new mannequin for the US market, which we’re going to unveil to start with of August. Do you have got a reputation for it? We do, however it’s nonetheless into account. It has a smaller battery and decrease pace than our Prime bike. We are going to do our greatest to make it inexpensive so extra individuals will be capable of use it. How did a few of your e-bikes wind up within the struggle? When the struggle started, we determined that we’re going to assist the individuals of Ukraine and we’re going to donate 5% of all our gross sales income as an organization. And we’ve donated three e-bikes — two of our Prime 3.0 bikes to Ukrainian navy forces and one prototype to the volunteer division. They’re utilizing this prototype for his or her medical workers. Three bikes are what we had in our services in the beginning of the struggle. We ship elements and semi-assembled bikes from China to California. And we have now our inventory right here in Los Angeles. We now have simply an R&D heart in Ukraine. We did not have many spare elements in Kyiv.
The navy adjusted them. They made a further rear trunk for holding rocket launchers. They are saying it really works effectively. Based on their suggestions, our bike is maneuverable, it’s quiet and it can’t be noticed by warmth sensors. To allow them to come to a place, do no matter they should do, after which instantly depart with out being noticed. They’ve a tricky scenario. Russian troops are attacking our military. It’s scorching. It’s actually scorching. Our Ukrainian troopers, generally they arrive again wounded and with some damages on their automobiles and autos. Our bikes are nonetheless working regardless of damages. It operates effectively within the hottest circumstances. And you’re additionally fundraising now? Sure, a few yr in the past, to start with of 2021, we did an fairness crowdfunding spherical at fundable.com. Folks from Ukraine believed in our firm. 300 of them invested. The typical examine was about $10,000. So we raised $3.4 million. That helped us to create our R&D heart in Ukraine, to maneuver our headquarters to California and to create a inventory of bikes. We invested rather a lot into our provide chain, into logistics, and we decreased our lead time from 4 months, one yr in the past, to 2 weeks at this time.
Then we launched a Collection A enterprise spherical in the beginning of this yr. We paused on the finish of February, however now I’m again at it. The aim for the spherical is $20 million. We’ve obtained $2 million and proper now I’m in negotiation for an additional $5 million. We now have a product, we have now a product plan, we have now a platform, we have now proprietary applied sciences, we have now gross sales, and we’re rising, even with out exterior funding. We want funding to make the expansion quicker. We’re rising at 3x. We need to develop 20x. I’m constructing a multibillion-dollar firm right here.
