The startup appearing at Shark Tank is headed by Gill Carmo from Lisbon, Portugal. He came to Vietnam 10 years ago and married a Vietnamese woman.

Gill Carmo is the co-founder and manager of iMotorbike, a startup which trades motorbikes online with the parent company located in Singapore and operation in Vietnam and Malaysia.

Gill Carmo said the business uses its money to buy used motorbikes, and repairs the motorbikes before reselling to new users. Detailed information about the motorbikes are updated on iMotorbike’s website.

Vietnam has 70 million registered motorbikes, and 10 million motorbikes change hands each year, which is a fertile market for the startup to develop.

Over the last 11 months, more than 1,000 motorbikes have been sold by the company, creating revenue of more than $1.1 million. The profit margin is 7 percent and the average inventory cycle is 26 days.

The manager of iMotorbike came to Shark Tank to call for investment of $600,000 in exchange for 5 percent of the firm’s shares.

iMotorbike is currently focusing on operating in HCM City and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). In Vietnam, the startup has had many sources of income. It has 120 motorbikes in stock, including 30 in Vietnam.

According to Gill Carmo, iMotorbike rejects 70-80 percent of the used motorbikes. The reason is that it only buys products with high quality, which allows it to turn over capital quickly. 

Since the startup buys motorbikes with its own money, the founder has decided to call for more investment to supplement the company’s capital. Prior to that, iMotorbike had successfully called for $1.5 million worth of capital

Shark Louis, CEO of Saigon Asset Management, questioned why the company’s gross profit is relatively low (7 percent) but it values itself at $12 million. 

Gill Carmo said he used the equivalence comparison method with car trading companies such as Carro and Carsome.

However, the explanation did not satisfy the sharks. Shark Louis said the comparison was not fair as consumers in Vietnam are not the same as in other countries.

With a margin profit of 7 percent, and annual revenue of $1.5 million, the startup would need 142 years to have $12 million, which is equal to its self-determined value at this time. 

Shark Binh, chair of NextTech Group, commented that iMotobike’s business model is similar with C2B2C and the startup needs high operation costs as it needs to recruit many technicians and use its own money to buy motorbikes.

All the sharks refused to invest in the startup.

Trong Dat