A new startup in the e-scooter space, Berlin-based Flash, has raised a gigantic Series A funding round of €55 million led by Target Global, the Financial Times reports. The startup was founded by Lukasz Gadowski, the co-founder of Delivery Hero, together with Uber and McKinsey alumni.
Unlike many other e-scooter companies, including the US-founded industry pioneers Bird and Lime, Flash claims to have designed and built its vehicles rather than using off-the-shelf solutions. At the moment, Flash is running two limited pilot programs in Zurich and Lisbon.
Gadowski's plan is to use the funding to launch “tens of thousands of scooters” in Italy, Spain, and France.
Within the last few months, we've seen over €150 million of VC money flowing towards European e-scooter startups, making it one of the hottest niches on the market. Namely, $50 million went to Stockholm-based VOI; $22 million to German-founded Wind Mobility; Amsterdam's dott landed €20 million; another German platform, TIER, landed €25 million.
At the same time, however, the self-proclaimed “future of transportation” has faced regulatory hurdles in certain geographies, including Sweden, Spain. In addition to that, Lime, one of the prominent US-founded players in the space, has had to pull its entire fleet from Basel and Zurich in Switzerland after a series of reported injuries.
Image credit: Mi Community
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