Amsterdam-founded e-scooter startup dott has landed €20 million in a funding round co-led by EQT Ventures and Naspers, with participation from Axel Springer Digital Ventures, DN Capital, Felix Capital, FJ Labs, U-Start Club, and angel investors. The company will use the cash injection to launch a pilot version of its shared e-scooters and e-bikes at the Station F hub in Paris and later expand across Europe.
A new entrant to the already crowded shared e-scooter space, dott is trying to stand out by using vehicles designed in-house. The dott e-scooters will have “10" wheels for reliable road grip, wider decks for optimised centre of gravity, double brake system for safety (e-ABS and drum brake), speed cap at 20km/h and a longer charging autonomy,” the company stated in a press release.
Most of the other significant players in the shared e-scooter space use modified off-the-shelf vehicles including models by Xiaomi and Nanobot. A notable exception is Berlin-based Wind Mobility that has recently raised €22 million and is also working on an e-scooter of its own.
Launched in Amsterdam by two French co-founders, Maxim Romain and Henri Moissinac, dott is going to rely on its own local teams to take care of the fleet, including charging and repairs. Most of the other European players use a “gig economy” approach, working with freelancers who'd do this as a side job in their spare time.
The pilot of dott will launch in early 2019 to coincide with the opening of Flatmates, a new co-living space by Station F. The company has yet to announce the ride prices and the first cities it will launch it. The app screenshot on the website, however, shows the map of Amsterdam, scooter unlocking price of €1, and the per-minute fee of €0.15, which is in line with the other offers across the continent.
Earlier this year, several other European e-scooter companies raised significant amounts of funding from VCs: VOI landed $50 million, Wind Mobility $22 million, and TIER €25 million.
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