As rumoured for several weeks now Dutch e-bike firm VanMoof appear to be in a bit of a sticky financial situation, resulting in it suspending payments and shutting down of its physical stores, temporarily. It has entered a type of Chapter 11 type agreement in The Netherlands - the company has confirmed to TechCrunch it 'has applied to a local court for an official suspension of payment provision after running out of money'.
In response to this situation the team over at Cowboy Bikes got cracking on an app to support VanMoof riders if or when the VM software becomes unavailable to them. It is an app, in Beta (bear in mind this was built overnight!), called Bikey - 'to enable VanMoof riders to generate their unique digital key'. The app is available on IOS and will be available on Android soon.
The company has said it ‘works fine for most people who have tested it, but we're still working on an update for those with multiple VM bikes’ but the haste was to get it out the door in the case that VM servers become no longer available.
Cowboy also stated that 'this is about keeping bikes on the road, which is our no.1 mission as a company, regardless if it's a competitor or not'.
Main image credit: Dan Taylor
