Bolt Mobility raises €3.1M in crowdfunding, satellite startup Magnitude Space lands additional €2.5M investment

Big funding rounds are being closed at the moment. While Bolt Mobility raises €3.1M during their fundraiser, Magnitude Space lands an additional €2.5M investment. Bolt Mobility has hereby oversubscribed their fundraising campaign by over 200%, making it the most successful non-UK Seedrs campaign to date. However, Magnitude Space has now reached a total amount of €3.5M with this latest investment. The company has also closed some big partnerships and landed launching customers for their network.

Bolt Mobility

Bolt Mobility’s fundraiser, which attracted over 2.000 investors from the UK and the Netherlands, has become Seedrs’ most successful non-UK campaign to date. The investment will primarily be used to get Bolt’s internet-enabled electric “Appscooter” ready for market in 2018. While the majority of investors originates from the United Kingdom, Dutch investors seemed to invest more on average.

Environmental problems

Scooters in particular pose serious environmental problems. It is even stated that they are responsible for 30% of traffic emissions worldwide. Reportedly, scooters are also thousands of times more polluting than small delivery vans. This was stated by the University of Cambridge. Global sales of scooters and motorcycles are enormous too, as 134 million units have been sold in 2016. This translates into worldwide revenues of approximately €77M.

Becoming the European market leader

Founded in 2014 by Marijn Flipse and Bart Jacobsz Rosier, the company is aiming to deliver the scooter of choice for all Europeans in 2018 amidst uncertainty regarding petrol scooter laws. Namely, a couple of European countries have put policies in place to deal with the environmental damage being done by scooters. Some good examples are The Netherlands, France and Italy. In Amsterdam, petrol scooters that have been manufactured before 2011 will be phased out. As a result, 77% of all petrol scooters in Amsterdam will be subject to legislation from the start of 2018. France and Italy will be banning petrol scooter usage in some cities during some days or times.

The relationship with the UK

The United Kingdom is seemingly not going to do anything about the problem, as the government is only going to ban the sales of diesel and petrol cars by 2040. This is quite odd, as scooters are the bigger polluters. Also, poor air quality is becoming an increasingly big concern in the United Kingdom, as air pollution reportedly causes around 29.000 deaths in the country.

And yet, the United Kingdom is one of the biggest supporters of Bolt Mobility’s Appscooter. Jacobsz Rosier, CEO and Co-founder of Bolt Mobility, stated the following: “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.” It looks like the success of the ‘Tesla on two wheels’ isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Magnitude Space

Magnitude Space, a startup from Amsterdam, has had a very successful half year by realising some big milestones. Like stated earlier, the startup has landed an additional €2.5M investment, reaching a total amount of €3.5M. The company has also closed some big partnerships and landed 15 launching customers. Above all, these milestones enable Magnitude Space to launch its very own satellite network in 2018.

Cutting edge technology

By using groundbreaking technology, the company will be able to realise the commercial start of their “Low Power Global Area Network” (LPGAN). As a result, Magnitude Space will be the first company to provide a simple but also uncostly Internet of Things connectivity to even the most remote areas of the world. In other words, the network will enable people from all around the world to easily connect to the internet. The European Space Agency and the Netherlands Space Office will continue to support the startup.

International support

Magnitude Space has had a lot of international attention recently. The company has started a number of big, international partnerships in the world of IoT. Some examples are Iridium and Boskalis, the latter also being a launching customer. Ernst Peter Hovinga, CEO of Magnitude Space, stated the following: “It is nice to see that our cutting edge technology and proposition are being noticed. Although for now, our focus is the initial launch of the network in 2018.”