Sweden-based e-scooter startup VOI Technology has reportedly raised funds amounting to $50 million in Series A funding round. This round was led by London-based venture capital firm Balderton Capital.
Along with this, backers like LocalGlobe, Raine Ventures, and previous VOI backer Vostok New Ventures also participated in the funding. A number of angel investors also participated that include Cristina Stenbeck, Jeff Wilkes (Amazon), Justin Mateen (co-founder of Tinder), Nicolas Brusson (CEO and co-founder of BlaBlaCar), Sebastian Knutsson (co-founder of King), Spencer Rascoff (CEO of Zillow), and Keith Richman.
The company is planning to use the funds so raised for expanding into new European markets. Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Portugal are said to be launching “in the coming months”.
Prior to this, the startup raised around $3 million earlier this year. Founded in Sweden’s Stockholm by Fredrik Hjelm, Douglas Stark, Adam Jafer and Filip Lindvall, VOI has since expanded to Madrid, Zaragoza and Malaga in Spain.
“We see that we’ve changed user behaviour drastically in a very short time period,” VOI CEO Fredrik Hjelm said. “We changed how people commute, people move themselves. We changed how people transport within cities almost instantly after they try the scooters for the first time”.
In just 12 weeks, VOI claims to have 120,000 users, who have taken 200,000 rides, travelling 350,000 kilometres. It says this makes VOI Europe’s leading e-scooter sharing company. The company is also talking up its “distinctive” European approach in the way the company works collaboratively with city authorities.