TIER Mobility raises mammoth $250 million Series C round

German micro-mobility company TIER has raised a $250 million Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2i. Existing investors joined, including Mubadala Capital, Northzone, Goodwater Capital, White Star Capital, Novator and RTP Global. The Berlin-based business, already profitable, will use the funding to build an electric charging network and continue expanding coverage in European cities. Founded just two years ago, the company raised a $60 million Series B round last year, has deployed 60,000 e-scooters across 80 cities in ten countries, and employs about 900 people. And amid all of that, the fast-growing company found a way to climate neutrality, which it says it achieved in January 2020. Four months ago TIER, along with Voi and Dott, announced a joint commitment to sustainability. Part of this commitment has been adopting the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding framework and setting an agenda for reducing and offsetting emissions. “Our vision is a completely new way of how we will move in cities in the future: all electric, shared and affordable, and with different vehicles powered by one energy network,” says Lawrence Leuschner, the company’s CEO. The TIER Energy Network is a plan for thousands of charging stations installed in cities across Europe to power electric vehicles. Users could easily swap depleted vehicle batteries for charged ones at a network of charging stations, or TIER PowerBoxes, hosted by local businesses, such as cafes and convenience stores. In addition to the Series C round, the German scale-up is currently in the process of securing a “significant debt facility” to fund vehicle expansion. Ibrahim Ajami, head of ventures at Mubadala Investment Company, says the Abu Dhabi firm looks forward “to seeing the company bring its sustainable mobility solutions to more cities across Europe and the Middle East.”

Photo: TIER CEO Lawrence Leuschner