Bolt electric AppScooter funded for production

Bolt Mobility, the ‘Tesla on two wheels’, has today closed it’s oversubscribed (by over 200%) fundraising campaign, which raised over €3 million on equity crowdfunding platform, Seedrs.

The European startup is on a mission to take petrol-guzzling, environmentally harmful scooters off the road, permanently.

The campaign attracted over 2,000 investors from the UK and the Netherlands. That is remarkable in itself but it has also become Seedrs most successful non-UK campaign to date.

The proceeds from the fundraise will be primarily used to get Bolt’s internet-enabled electric scooter, “AppScooter”, ready to market in 2018.

While the majority of the campaign’s investors were UK based, investors from the Netherlands invested more per person on average.

Scooters impact

A number of European countries have put specific policies in place to deal with the environmental impact of scooters.

In Amsterdam, 77% of all scooters on the roads will be subject to new legislation from January 2018 as petrol scooters manufactured before 2011 are phased out.

France and Italy have also banned petrol scooter usage in some cities during certain days or times.

UK legislation

By contrast, it appears that the UK is lagging behind Europe.

The British government recently said they’d ban the sale of diesel and petrol cars by 2040.

However, they have not yet put similar legislation in place to deal with scooters. This is pretty odd as they are actually bigger polluters than cars.

Furthermore, air pollution in Britain causes an estimated 29,000 deaths a year.

Bolt

Bolt was founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Marijn Flipse and Bart Jacobsz Rosier.

The Dutch startup is gearing up to be the scooter of choice for Europeans next year amidst uncertainty regarding petrol scooter laws.

Bolt’s recent fundraising round will accelerate production so the automotive startup can take its electric scooters to market in 2018.

Bolt’s AppScooter explained

Ahead of ordering an AppScooter, you are able to fully customise your electric scooter.

Select from options including: colour, motor and battery size, alloys, rims and other extras, including a windscreen.

Specifications

The AppScooter offers the potential to store six battery modules. This translates to the potential of being able to travel 245 miles (400km) on a single charge. This is three times more than any other competitor.

These scooters are capable of going from 0 to over 25 miles per hour (45km/h) in just 3.3 seconds. Currently making the AppScooter the fastest accelerating scooter on the market.

Naturally, being a modern vehicle, the AppScooter has a 7-inch touchscreen that has a 4G internet connection. That web connectivity is provided by Vodafone.

AppScooter’s technology knows your location, answers your calls, plays music and navigates the best routes.

It even texts your friends your time of arrival. Perhaps more importantly, it sends an automatic “I’m driving” response.

The user interface can also be controlled via the handlebars, allowing you to focus on the road.

It boggles my mind that over 70% of people still use their smartphone while driving. This increases the chance of an accident by up to 160 times.

Words

Bart Jacobsz Rosier, CEO and co-founder at Bolt, says:

It’s exciting to see so much support from the UK market. The proceeds from our latest fundraise will enable us to push the AppScooter into production next year. We aim to have delivered more than a quarter million scooters to customers by 2020. We are truly excited to be at the forefront of a lucrative market worth over £30 billion a year.”

Edwin Berkhout, a Dutch venture capitalist and investor in Bolt adds:

Bolt Mobility’s approach is revolutionary, as our scooters will be powered by clean, renewable electric and therefore potentially game changing on a global scale. Not only is the AppScooter the next step in helping the world reach its renewable targets, it is also how scooter driving should be.”

Price and availability

The Bolt AppScooter will be available next year, 2018, and will cost from €2990 depending on options.

Head over to the Bolt Mobility website for more details.