Derek Leaves Damon - InsightEV

Derek Leaves Damon

The Canadian-Californian company's restructuring seems to be continuing as Derek Dorresteyn, the long-time CTO of the company is gone.

InsightEV InsightEV
Published : January 15, 2025
339 words

Table of Content

Looking at the team page on Damon‘s website, it appears that their long-standing CTO – Derek Dorresteyn – has left the company. We have not seen a press release or information to the exchanges to this effect, but Damon has been pretty prompt in the past in updating their team page whenever a senior management person has separated from the company.

Last month, Damon replaced their founder-CEO, Jay Giraud, with co-founder Dominique Kwong as interim CEO.

Derek Dorresteyn is one of the most valuable CTOs in the electric two-wheeler industry. He is widely considered a technology visionary and is responsible for creating two motorcycle designs, both way ahead of their time, pathbreaking, and radical. His work at Damon created the Hypersport, the motorcycle that Damon Motors has been showing to the media for the last three years, and is yet to bring to production. The Hypersport cuts the weight drastically by using thin-wall castings as a structural element in creating a monocoque battery & motor casting that supports the motorcycle.

Before Damon, Derek was the CTO of Alta Motors and created the Redshift, one of the first electric motocrossers in the world. Alta ran out of funding after H-D reneged on a funding promise.

We interviewed Derek Dorresteyn and Jay Giraud sometime back to talk in detail about the Hypersport.

Damon Motors has been scratching for funds for a few years now. The company’s most-awaited listing on the NASDAQ has been disappointing, with the share price under continuous pressure. As of writing this (15th-Jan-2025), the company has a market cap of less than USD 15m.

Damon Motors’ market cap has been continuously declining.

Impact

First, there seems to be a lot happening at Damon, with Jay Giraud (CEO) and now Derek Dorresteyn (CTO) leaving. Given this latest event, it is likely that the company does not have the cash needed to bring the Hypersport to production. Further, with Derek not a part of the company anymore, it may be inferred that Damon is rethinking its business direction.


Previous Article

InsightEV Weekender: Week 32

Recent E2W bankruptcies are being resurrected; Ather improves financials as sales take off; and we interview Positive Motorcycles

Next Article

India E2W Registrations: August

In August 2025, the industry sales volumes stayed flat, the E2W penetration levels remained unchanged, but the upheaval within was the talking point.

Insight EV Related Articles

Stark Future Raises Another Round

Stark Future is rather unique. It makes one of the most capable electric motocrossers in the Varg. Stark is also one of the most profitable electric two-wheeler startups around. The company has announced that it has closed an undisclosed investment round. No numbers have been revealed, though they said that the...

September 8, 2025

InsightEV Weekender: Week 32

Greetings and welcome back to the InsightEV Weekender. Here, I like to focus on things beyond what we covered during the week. I didn't show up for the last two weeks because there was nothing much to chirp about. Also, I have been busy editing a fairly big report that...

August 9, 2025

When Dreams are Redrawn

Global electric two-wheeler brands that promise to stretch the product or technology envelopes are like cult movies. They failed when they needed to work. But once they died, everyone remembers them fondly. They have more fans than customers, and that's a pity. Everyone loves a back-from-the-dead story. A story that presumably...

August 7, 2025

Bajaj Will Ride KTM

Pierer Mobility AG is the holding company for KTM AG, the motorcycle manufacturer. Pierer Mobility has other business areas as well, like financing and components manufacturing, but KTM AG is by far the biggest business area for the group. For this analysis, I would frequently interchange KTM and Pierer throughout...

May 29, 2025

The most comprehensive deep dive into the electric two-wheeler and light vehicle industry.

© Copyright 2025 insightev. All rights reserved.