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The pandemic spurred a increase in electrical bikes and different different city transportation modes as metropolis dwellers seemed for less-crowded methods to get round their streets shortly and simply with out resorting to vehicles. Now, one of many firms that benefitted from that pattern is asserting a giant spherical of funding to develop its enterprise. Cowboy, a Brussels-based startup that makes e-bikes and an accompanying app to handle varied companies associated to them, has raised $80 million in a Collection C spherical of funding.
Exor, HCVC and Siam Capital co-led the funding, with Tiger World, Index Ventures, Eothen, Isomer Alternatives Fund, Future Constructive Capital and Triple Level Capital additionally taking part. Cowboy — which has raised $120 million so far — will not be disclosing its valuation, nor any gross sales numbers, nevertheless it says that it’s on observe to achieve 100,000 riders by 2023.
Adrien Roose, the CEO and co-founder of Cowboy, mentioned he was impressed to construct the startup based mostly on three completely different experiences. His earlier firm, meals supply startup Take Eat Straightforward (which ultimately shut down), relied rather a lot on bike riders for deliveries; these had been primarily carried out on standard push bikes, which meant a sure accepted lag labored into the startup’s logistics community. Individually, Roose visited his grandfather and noticed that he was utilizing an electrical bike to get round. As a bicycle owner himself, Roose seen e-bikes as simply that: practical-but-ugly automobiles for older individuals who couldn’t drive and didn’t have the power for standard bikes. His a-ha second was when he realised that these e-bikes might have helped his bike supply community work sooner, whereas additionally contributing to a greater surroundings within the metropolis general, in comparison with the motorbikes or vehicles that had been in any other case used for supply.
“It took me some time to grasp that e-bikes might turn into standard not simply with the aged,” he mentioned. “Electrifying the bike has made biking extra accessible to everybody.”
Roose and his co-founders Karim Slaoui (Cowboy’s VP of {hardware}) and Tanguy Goretti (Cowboy’s CTO) got down to design a motorbike that may enchantment to a distinct sort of shopper, a youthful city dweller. Cowboy designs its bikes from the bottom up — a marked distinction, Roose mentioned, from many others available on the market which may design the body however then purchase parts from third events. Cowboy bikes are recognized for his or her glossy, brushed-metal strains and comparatively gentle weight (a Cowboy bike weighs round 19 kg, akin to its shut rival Van Moof); their discreet battery positioning (it’s a protracted tube that in flip locks into the again of the seat tube); and 70 km battery life.
Cowboy as we speak has two fashions of its gear-free electrical bikes on the market, the C3 and C4 (retailing for £2,490; or simply below $3,000).
Alongside the bikes, Cowboy has developed an app that you simply use with the bike that gives a variety of free bike-related companies, akin to route planning, bike monitoring, diagnostics and the flexibility to trace your individual progress and examine it in opposition to different Cowboy riders in your metropolis.
The plan is to make use of the funds to put money into three areas.
First, Cowboy desires to proceed creating the tech on the bikes themselves. One space the place Cowboy’s CEO and co-founder Adrien Roose mentioned he’d prefer to see some motion is for the worth for these bikes to come back down over time.
“This has been on my thoughts for the reason that day we began as a result of we wish to speed up the transition to biking and in the event you go into hundreds of {dollars} for a motorbike, it begins to turn into one of the costly purchases a buyer would possibly make.” Initially, he mentioned, the intention was to promote the bikes for lower than €1,000, though the complexities of designing them from the bottom up has meant that that the costs have ratcheted as much as be considerably greater than that. Now, as the corporate scales, it has an opportunity to make use of that to ease the worth down over time.
Second, Cowboy plans so as to add extra companies and performance to its app, which is shaping as much as be a separate income stream for the corporate with the latest addition of paid companies akin to insurance coverage, crash restoration and “Cowboy Care,” a motorbike restore and upkeep service that’s presently accessible in 22 cities. It’s additionally dabbling in a round financial system mannequin, the place Cowboy homeowners can promote used Cowboy bikes on the startup’s platform.
And third, Cowboy desires to rent extra expertise to execute on the primary two factors, and to develop throughout extra markets. The corporate expanded into the U.S. in 2021, and whereas Europe accounts for almost all of Cowboy’s enterprise as we speak, North America is rising quick, so that can probably be one focus for hiring and enterprise enlargement.
“Whereas international efforts in combating local weather change have led to rising help for the decarbonization of city mobility, the necessity for extra sustainable modes of transportation has by no means been extra obvious, particularly amongst this period of aware shoppers. By marrying best-in-class {hardware}, software program and subscription companies to ship an elevated expertise, Cowboy is uniquely positioned to emerge as a frontrunner in making electrical bikes not solely accessible but in addition aspirational. We couldn’t be extra thrilled to associate with them as they proceed to convey their mission to market,” says Sita Chantramonklasri from Siam Capital, in a press release.
Cowboy quotes estimates that undertaking gross sales of $50 billion for e-bikes within the subsequent six years, however that can embrace a large plethora of manufacturers and enterprise fashions. Certainly, Cowboy is competing out there not simply in opposition to different modes of transport and different e-bike makers: there’s additionally been an enormous profusion of electrical bike rental platforms from the likes of Uber and others. This turns into a compelling method for extra informal shoppers to make use of e-bikes with out making the numerous funding into shopping for one.
Roose says that he sees shared possession and on-demand gamers as a lift to Cowboy’s enterprise.
“I’m deeply satisfied that bike sharing platforms have enormously helped us educate the market on what an e-bike is, to grasp the worth it may possibly convey you,” he mentioned. “Additionally frankly we don’t compete instantly. I take advantage of my bike however I additionally lease by the minute for brief journeys on the go. It’s a really completely different use case.”
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