E‑bike manufacturer VanMoof raises another € 108 million

Amster­dam — Dutch e‑bike manu­fac­tu­rer VanMoof has recei­ved a further 128 million US dollars from inves­tors — the equi­va­lent of around 108.5 million euros. Accor­ding to the company, this is “the largest Series C invest­ment ever made for a Euro­pean e‑bike brand.”

Toge­ther with the two previous finan­cing rounds last year, VanMoof now has total funding of $182 million (about 154 million euros). The current funding round was led by Hill­house Invest­ment, an Asia-based private equity firm. Another new inves­tor is Gillian Tans, the former CEO of Booking.com. Also on board were exis­ting inves­tors Norwest Venture Part­ners, Felix Capi­tal, Balder­ton Capi­tal and Triple­Point Capital.

The Dutch plan to use the new funds to increase produc­tion capa­city, conti­nue the deve­lo­p­ment of new tech­no­lo­gies and improve bike speci­fi­ca­ti­ons and relia­bi­lity. “We are reinven­ting, desig­ning and re-engi­­nee­ring every compo­nent of the bicy­cle. This has never been done before and will fore­ver change the way a bike is made, sold and serviced,” lets Taco Carlier (photo), co-foun­­der of VanMoof. This will be instru­men­tal in getting 10 million people on our bikes in the next five years.”

VanMoof was foun­ded in 2009 by brot­hers Taco and Ties Carlier, the company curr­ently offers two e‑bike models S3 and X3. Both feature auto­ma­tic elec­tro­nic shif­ting, built-in anti-theft tech­no­logy, and the Apple Find My Network loca­tion func­tion, among other features. Prices start at 2,198 euros.

The Amster­­dam-based startup’s high-end bikes were alre­ady selling well, but the Corona-rela­­ted lock­downs have addi­tio­nally crea­ted an order boom. Sales figu­res are expec­ted to more than triple in 2020. This spring, the company put the “global driver commu­nity” at “150,000 drivers — and growing.” At that time, VanMoof had presen­ces in Amster­dam, Berlin, London, New York, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Seat­tle and Tokyo. Retail loca­ti­ons have now been estab­lished in 50 cities, the company says. VanMoof has iden­ti­fied the USA as the largest growth market.

In April, VanMoof announ­ced some new products. This year, for exam­ple, the Dutch e‑bike manu­fac­tu­rer laun­ched a detacha­ble power­bank desi­gned to give riders up to 100 kilo­me­ters of addi­tio­nal range on VanMoof bikes, which can be easily char­ged indoors. In addi­tion, the bikes now feature a more visi­ble matrix display, rede­si­gned fender flaps and pedals, and better inter­nal wiring. In addi­tion, as an acces­sory, VanMoof’s bike boxes are now more compact and contain 70% less plastic.

“Since the launch of the S3 & X3, we have listened carefully. Driver feed­back is key to our new tech­no­logy,” says Taco Carlier. “Our ability to incor­po­rate them quickly is what makes VanMoof unique.” The Carlier brot­hers attri­bute this speed to their verti­cal supply chain, which combi­nes ever­y­thing from design to compo­nent engi­nee­ring to distri­bu­tion. This way, you can constantly update your product.