It's with great sadness that we share the news that Karim Slaoui, co-founder of Belgian e-bike company Cowboy, has died aged 36.
He passed away on Friday last week. Karim was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, a synovial sarcoma, in 2019.
A hardware specialist who received his Ph.D. as a civil engineer in applied mathematics from Université Catholique de Louvain in 2014, Slaoui co-founded e-bike company Cowboy with Adrien Roose and Tanguy Goretti in 2017.
He stepped down from the board and away from the day-to-day running of the company last year, sharing the journey of his cancer diagnosis with Startup Vie.
His wife Aurore shared that the things he truly cared about were to 'Be optimistic and innovate'.
Cowboy co-founders Adrien Roose and Tanguy Goretti said in an official statement earlier today:
"It is with deep sadness that we announce our co-founder Karim has died at the age of 36.
"He was a gifted engineer, a tenacious entrepreneur, and a visionary in every sense of the word.
"Without Karim, there would be no Cowboy. We have lost a close friend and partner, and the world has lost a genius mind, instrumental not only in the development of Cowboy, but in making the world a better place to live."
We've written a lot about Cowboy over the years, as we truly believe well-designed, locally-made, high-quality e-bikes are the future of urban mobility.
Cowboy turned drivers into cyclists. The company has gone from strength to strength in terms of growing the rider community and has continued to evolve the technical, construction, and engineering capabilities of e-bikes with a commitment to circularity and local industry.
The whole Tech.eu team offers our deepest sympathies to Karim's family and friends, the Cowboy team, and the wider e-bike, maker, and startup communities.
Lead image: Adrien Roose, Tanguy Goretti, and Karim Slaoui from Cowboy. Photo: Uncredited.
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