🤫 Hello’s secret IPO
Plus, Bird bets $150m on Europe, ebikes lap car sales, and Via bags Remix.
Hello and welcome to the Micromobility Newsletter, a weekly missive about mobility, mostly mobility in cities by lightweight electric vehicles. The reason you’re reading this email is that you signed up on our website or came to one of our webinars or events.
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Battery charging is top of mind for many, including operators and OEMs. Especially since it accounts for 50-70% of operational costs. Micromobility operators are working hard to decrease these charging costs where possible.
We at INVERS see two dominant industry trends when it comes to charging: user-based battery swapping and battery standardization. Both trends have the potential to significantly cut down on operational costs, but there’s still implementation challenges.
Dive into the INVERS blog to learn more.
What you need to know this week
Chinese bike-sharing giant Hello, which is backed by Ant Group, has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO, according to people familiar with the matter. Working with China International Capital Corp., Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley, the Shanghai-based startup could be looking to raise as much as $1b. Industry veterans may recall that Hello (formerly Hellobike) was one of the few firms to survive China’s disastrous bike-sharing bubble in 2017 and come through the crisis stronger. Today the company is valued at $5b, with over 400m registered users and fleets in more than 400 cities in China.
Bird says it will spend $150m on Europe in 2021, including launching in more than 50 cities, subsidizing its ride pass program, and deploying unspecified new “mobility products and safety initiatives.”
Helbiz has secured $30m in PIPE funding as part of its SPAC deal. The micromobility operator expects to go public through a merger with GreenVision Acquisition Corp. in the second quarter at a valuation of $408m, an arrangement that would make it the first company of its kind to be listed on the Nasdaq.
More electric bikes were sold in Germany in 2020 than electric cars were sold in all of Europe.
And in the Netherlands, ebike sales grew by 30% during the same period, reaching 547,000 units. That’s 54% more than the total number of cars, both gas and electric, that were sold in the country in 2020.
A tiny vehicle from Chinese brand Wuling, the Hong Guang Mini EV, toppled Tesla’s Model 3 as the world’s best-selling electric car in January, with deliveries exceeding 36,000 in the month, more than those of the Model 3 and Model Y combined.
The idea of a VMT tax is gaining steam in the U.S.
Bike retailers are blaming the Chinese bike-sharing bubble for the current global shortage of parts. The theory goes that China’s manufacturers aren’t investing in additional capacity to meet the skyrocketing demand for bikes right now because of bad memories from the 2017 crash, in which Chinese startups flooded city streets with rental bikes and then went belly up overnight.“The major Chinese bike assemblers were left with millions of bikes (after the share-bike collapse). That’s still fresh in a lot of their minds.”
A look inside the DIY ebike scene, where teens and YouTubers upgrade their bikes using cheap conversion kits, and status is all about speed.
Ottawa will dedicate $320m to Canada’s first-ever federal fund for active mobility.
City data startup Populus has raised $5m in a round led by new investors Storm Ventures and contract manufacturing and supplier company Magna.
The first electric mopeds from Ola’s $330m mega-factory in India will roll off the line in June.
Tier e-scooters and e-mopeds will soon be available to rent via the FreeNow app, the shared mobility venture formed by BMW and Daimler.
This is why cargo bikes rule…
One year into the pandemic, Europe is doubling down on bikes to reopen the economy. And it’s not just congestion-filled major metros like London and Paris that are embracing car-free streets. Smaller cities like Lisbon and Krakow are seeing a big surge in cycling too.
Remix, a startup that provides mapping software for transportation planning, is being acquired by micro-transit firm Via for $100m in cash and equity.
New research from Emory University shows that micromobility is good for local economies. The study examined four large U.S. cities and found that shared scooters created $13.8m in additional sales for food and beverage companies, compared to cities that did not have scooter programs.
Dorel Sports rode last year’s bike boom to more than $1b in sales, up 15% from the year before.
Financial Times: “Cities need to take space from cars, offices and shops and give it to housing, community and nature. The city of the future may look a lot like the city of the past, just cleaner: bicycles, farms and homeworking rather than flying cars.”
Pod people
The Micromobility Podcast is back following a short break, and in the return episode, Oliver Bruce and Horace Dediu broach what they call the “trillion dollar question.” Could heavy micromobility (or vehicles weighing 50-500kg / 110-1,100lbs) be the defining vehicle class of our time?
Startup spotlight
Browse startups looking to connect with investors.
🌙 Luna Systems
We make micromobility safer using Edge AI & computer vision.
Problem
Our tech identifies sidewalk riding in real-time, can detect pedestrians in the path of the scooter, and turns shared scooter fleets into mobile sensor networks for smart cities.
Solution
By deploying Edge AI cameras and smart city algorithms on scooters.
How do you know it’s a problem?
Insurance Institute of Highway (IIHS) states that approximately 3 out of 5 e-scooter accidents happen on sidewalks.
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Jobs to be done
Welcome to our jobs board, where every week we post open positions in hopes of connecting our readers with professional opportunities in the burgeoning world of new mobility. Find out who’s hiring below and sign up for the newsletter to view fresh listings every week.
Hit reply if you have a job that you’re interested in listing.
Head of Warranty and Service @ Ampler Bikes (remote Europe)
Germany General Manager (Berlin) and City Manager (Düsseldorf) @ Felyx
Java Software Engineer @ Innovactory (Amsterdam area)
Senior Business Development Manager, Senior Growth Manager, and Senior Telematics Product Manager @ INVERS (Cologne)