Swobbee Raises €2M to Expand Micromobility Battery Rental and Swapping Services.
2023-04-27
Swobbee, a Berlin-based climate tech start-up, has secured an additional €2 million in an extension of its Series A round, bringing the total amount raised to €11 million. The funding will be used to expand Swobbee’s battery rental operations and charging infrastructure into new markets, as well as to further develop its technology platform.
Founded in 2017 as GreenPack, Swobbee pivoted to its current business model in 2020, offering rental batteries and battery swapping stations for electric micromobility vehicles. Swobbee’s battery swapping stations enable the rapid exchange and charging of batteries for a wide variety of electric micromobility vehicles, independent of the manufacturer. Each station is equipped with 8 to 30 battery slots, and the platform currently offers charging infrastructure for 8 types of batteries, with plans to expand to 10 soon.
“With an ever-increasing number of micromobility vehicles being deployed in cities worldwide, for both personal transport as well as last mile logistics, these stations enable the rapid exchange and charging of batteries for a wide variety of electric micromobility vehicles, independent of the manufacturer,” said Thomas Duscha, CEO and co-founder of Swobbee. “Using our device, the owner or manager of the vehicle swaps an empty battery with a full one in a few minutes and can continue using the vehicle, without unnecessary downtime.”
The new funds were raised through a combination of debt and equity financing, with Polish fund SpeedUp Energy Innovation and Dutch Stichting Clean Future Dividend Fund joining the group of earlier investors. Swobbee’s existing investors include High-Tech Gründerfonds, IBB Ventures, coparion, and Seed Capital Brandenburg.
“We predict that the use of micromobility devices will amount to up to 15% of all short-distance trips, with a range of up to 8 kilometers. This is just one of the market figures that leads us to believe in the enormous potential facing the Swobbee team,” said Bartłomiej Gola, General Partner of SpeedUp Energy Innovation. “Swobbee, in our opinion, is likely to become one of the key beneficiaries of technological advances in this area.”
Swobbee’s latest funding round comes at a time when the global micromobility market is rapidly expanding, with electric scooters, bikes, and other micromobility vehicles becoming an increasingly popular mode of transportation in urban areas. With its innovative battery rental and charging infrastructure, Swobbee is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend and help to reduce carbon emissions in cities around the world.