B2B News | Toronto’s Beechman Motor Company has received a strategic investment from Paul and Melissa Meehan, the entrepreneurs behind NÜTRL Vodka Soda – the ready-to-drink brand they brought to the top of the Canadian market before selling it to Labatt Breweries of Canada (Anheuser-Busch InBev) in 2020. investment comes through the couple Meehan Family Investments Inc. And the land marks one of the more notable endorsements Beachman has ever received.
There is a history behind this deal that goes beyond a typical investor pitch. Paul Meehan has known Beechman co-founders Ben Taylor and Steve Payne for years – Paul once hired Ben, and he heard Beechman’s voice in his office six years before the company sold its first bike. He also worked with Steve on music projects long before he had anything to do with motorcycles.
“I’ve been a long-time fan of what Steve and Ben are creating,” Watching the two of them create Beachman together felt like watching a true Canadian success story take shape, Meehan said.
Taylor, Beechman’s CEO and co-founder, described the investment as closer to a full-cycle moment than a straight funding round, noting that Meehan has effectively been around since before the company came into existence.
For context: NÜTRL wasn’t just a beverage launch: Before being spun off from AB InBev, Meehans built it into Canada’s leading vodka soda and one of the fastest-growing RTD brands in North America. This is the trajectory that Beechman is apparently pursuing on two wheels: a homegrown Canadian brand that has been mentioned in the same breath as Triumph, Vespa and Royal Enfield.
On the product side, Beechman’s current lineup focuses on the ’64, a mid-century-style electric motorcycle based on 1960s California design cues. The company already sells in Canada and the US through an expanding dealer network, and recently became Canada’s first federally licensed electric motorcycle manufacturer in more than 80 years: a regulatory milestone that has been more than 80 years in the making. A second model, the Aviator, is in development on a completely custom platform and is billed as fast and long-range, part of a broader multi-product push aimed at putting Beechman in more direct competition with established global players.
The Meehan investment is part of a Series A round that has already closed its first tranche, with backing from some of the founders of other well-known Canadian consumer brands. Beechman says the funds will be spent on strengthening its North American operations and funding expansion into Europe – still the world’s largest market for premium motorcycles, and where the EV-first Canadian brand will have to work to earn shelf space against established legacy names.
