Electric motorcycle manufacturer Zero continues to press hard in its fight to build a better battery bike, raising another $25 million in funding to move the company forward.

The latest pile of money now brings Zero’s aggregate investment to more than $250 million. Zero has been in the EV business for 13 years.

It’s an important time for Zero, as the competition is facing increasingly tough competition. For some time, Zero was the really the only mainstream street-legal North American electric motorcycle manufacturer. There were other companies like Mission or Brammo or Alta making electric motorcycles, but their products tended to be high-priced, or track- or dirt-focused, or even vaporware (prototypes that looked good, but never made it to market).

But now, Mission, Brammo and Alta have all gone out of business, and the established players are making moves, starting with the Harley-Davidson LiveWire electric bike, slated to hit the market later this summer. There’s a lot of buzz about soon-to-be-revealed Japanese electric motorcycles, including the Honda electric MXer. On the indie manufacturer front, Lightning is also about to start selling its Strike superbike.

Zero has its own electric superbike to counter the Strike and the LiveWire, the SR/F. The Zero SR/F is a naked bike, similar to the Harley-Davidson LiveWire, while the Lightning Strike models (it comes in three different variations) are all fully-faired.

That $25 million will go a long way towards building, promoting and even racing the SR/F, as Zero has announced plans to enter an electric race team at this year’s Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. Stay tuned on that one, as it’s always interesting to see the performance of electric motorcycles in a race where air density wreaks havoc on gas-powered motorcycles.

Zero Motorcycles CEO Sam Paschel says this latest cash infusion is important to the manufacturer’s future.

“To build a company like Zero is not easy,” says Paschel. “You need to build a leading EV technology business, an industrial business, and consumer-branded business all at once. In addition to break-through innovation and R&D investment, this takes time, hard work, and significant capital. Zero has been capital efficient over the years, and our committed and consistent backing has enabled us to fully fund our strategy and to succeed when others have failed.”

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