Swedish Scooter Company Scores $30M Series B

VOI Technology, Stockholm’s smart scooter company, just raised another $30 million in a Series B. This infusion tops off its $50 million Series A from November, according to the company. The new round was led by existing investors Vostok New Ventures, Balderton Capital, LocalGlobe and Raine Ventures. New participants included Project A and Creandum.

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The round will be used to expand the company’s services, beef up its team and invest more in research and development, VOI Technology Chief Marketing Officer Caroline Hjelm told us.

“We’ve seen a great interest from European investors to invest in ‘one European champion’ (when it comes to scooters),” said Hjelm. “We were excited to top up on our first investment so soon, and getting closer to building this European champion.”

VOI Technology was founded in August 2018 in response to Europe’s urban congestion problem. It is the first and only scooter company to launch in multiple countries, according to a company press release. Currently, VOI Technology exists in 14 cities across France, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and most recently Denmark.

The key to VOI Technology’s success is working in partnerships with cities, said Hjelm. In other words, VOI waits until a city is ready for scooters vs. dumping them on the streets too soon.

For example, while it had been eyeing Denmark as a potential launch city from the start, the company only entered last month after legal issues were resolved. Now they have over 200 partnerships in the country and are able to park on some private grounds.

Why write about another scooter company, you might ask? In case you are over our extensive scooter round reporting, please allow me to put this in perspective. In November, we reported on global e-scooter sharing companies, showing that big names like Lime, Spin and Bird aren’t the only ones entering the market. Further, there has been Singapore’s Beam, Madrid’s Koko kicksharing, PopScoot. and Mexico City’s Grin Scooters.

Bottomline: The recent VOI round shows that while the competition remains fierce, new kids on the scooter-friendly block are still gaining capital and attention from VCs.

Illustration Credit: Li Anne Dias