E‑bike subscription service Dance in Berlin raises 16.5 million euros

Berlin — Startup DANCE, from the foun­ders of Sound­cloud and Jimdo, wins Eura­zeo and other promi­nent angel inves­tors focu­sed on sustainable invest­ment: after a successful launch of its e‑bike subscrip­tion service in Berlin, Dance has raised an addi­tio­nal €16.5 million from new inves­tors. — Joining the event are Eura­zeo, one of the leading global invest­ment compa­nies, as well as other renow­ned angel inves­tors, inclu­ding Verena Paus­der, foun­der of the digi­tal children’s studio Fox & Sheep and educa­tion expert, Roxanne Varza, direc­tor of STATION F, a leading startup incu­ba­tor in Paris, Nico­las Berg­gruen, phil­an­thro­pist, foun­der of the Berg­gruen Insti­tute and Noema Maga­zine, Dave Morin and James Higa, co-foun­­ders of Offline Ventures.

After a year of pilo­ting and test­ing, Dance offi­ci­ally rolled out its subscrip­tion service in Berlin at the end of August, deli­ve­ring hundreds of EBikes to its members. The new funding will be used to conti­nue scaling the company, inclu­ding doubling the size of the team with employees with exper­tise in opera­ti­ons, engi­nee­ring and sustaina­bi­lity. Roll-out to other Euro­pean cities is plan­ned for the coming months. The startup’s goal is to create a global move­ment that makes cities more liva­ble — urban spaces for people, not cars.
“One of our prio­ri­ties at Eura­zeo is to make invest­ments that contri­bute to the decar­bo­niza­tion of the planet by 2040. Inves­t­ing in a solu­tion like Dance is abso­lut­ely in line with this mission,” says Matthieu Bonamy, Part­ner at Eura­zeo. “Dance is enab­ling cities around the world to change for the better: By scaling their user-friendly, holi­stic and sophisti­ca­ted approach, we can encou­rage more people to consis­t­ently choose to go green while driving posi­tive change in their commu­ni­ties,” Bonamy said.
Verena Paus­der, foun­der of the digi­tal children’s studio Fox & Sheep and educa­tion expert, says: “Climate change pres­ents us all with unpre­ce­den­ted challenges.
chal­lenges that have never been faced before. Bold and user-friendly inno­va­tions are urgen­tly needed to help us contri­bute to closing the climate gap. The vision behind Dance convin­ced me imme­dia­tely. I look forward to helping the startup make cities more climate-friendly, healt­hier, and ulti­m­ately more livable.”
“We’ve seen Paris, Milan, Brussels and other metro­po­li­tan areas invest heavily in impro­ving their cycling infra­struc­ture. Eura­zeo has reco­gni­zed that, toge­ther with us, they can funda­men­tally change the way we get around in our society — in a low-thres­­hold and user-friendly way. We are proud to welcome them and other new angel inves­tors as part of Dance’s move­ment to focus on crea­ting more sustainable cities,” said Eric Quide­­nus-Wahl­­­forss, co-foun­­der and CEO of Dance.
To stay up to date on when Dance laun­ches in your region, follow the hash­tag #move­wi­th­dance as well as our profiles on Insta­gram, Twit­ter and LinkedIn.
About Dance
Dance is a premium subscrip­tion service for EBikes based in Berlin. The company’s goal is to create a move­ment that makes cities more liva­ble — urban spaces for people, not cars. Dance combi­nes beau­tifully desi­gned EBikes with a fast all-round service and turns ever­y­day trans­por­ta­tion into a healthy, envi­ron­men­tally friendly expe­ri­ence that is also fun. The monthly subscrip­tion offers members maxi­mum flexi­bi­lity to disco­ver this new form of urban mobi­lity for them­sel­ves. Curr­ently, Dance’s subscrip­tion service is available to members in Berlin.Dance was foun­ded by Sound­Cloud foun­ders Eric Quide­­nus-Wahl­­­forss and Alex­an­der Ljung, along with Jimdo foun­der Chris­tian Sprin­gub. Inves­tors include BlueY­ard, HV Capi­tal and Eura­zeo. www. dance.co.

About Eura­zeo
Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment firm with €25.6 billion in assets under manage­ment — inclu­ding €17.8 billion from third-party inves­tors — inves­ted in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of appro­xi­m­ately 450 compa­nies. With exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence in private equity, private debt, real estate and infra­struc­ture, Eura­zeo supports compa­nies of all sizes. A team of nearly 300 profes­sio­nals with deep sector exper­tise and access to global markets respon­si­bly supports port­fo­lio compa­nies in their deve­lo­p­ment and provi­des them with a stable plat­form for trans­for­ma­tive growth. The solid share­hol­der struc­ture, consis­ting of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and fami­lies, in combi­na­tion with a robust, struc­tu­rally debt-free balance sheet and a flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon enable Eura­zeo to accom­pany port­fo­lio compa­nies over the long term. Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, São Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, Singa­pore, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.