Unlike the UK, the e-scooters providers enjoyed a positive response ever since their arrival in the Belgian capital, with hundreds of scooters belonging to a different operator.
Europe and e-scooter: What’s the deal?
The primary idea here is to provide a sustainable solution to the first and last mile transportation problem by helping people move around their cities eliminating their carbon footprint. Are electric scooters legal in Europe? Unless you live in the United Kingdom, for most of the part, it is legal. Countries like the Netherlands enjoy the electric scooter (provided rider should be above 16) and have to be ridden in the bike lane.
In France, it will be illegal to ride electric scooters on pavements from September 2019, according to the country’s transport minister. Moreover, places like Italy, Germany has been recently legalised.
Brussels: Right now!
Talking about the e-scooter in Brussels a lot of things happening now in and around the place. Earlier this year, the e-scooter sharing startups from Amsterdam including Cargoroo and Urbee, along with the Municipality have received a substantial share of around a million subsidies from Brussels.
In another instance, Uber has established its JUMP service in Brussels with 500 electric bikes appearing across Brussels City, Saint-Gilles, Ixelles, Etterbeek, Sint-Joost-ten-Node and Schaerbeek.At present, the Brussels market is captured by American scooter operator Lime followed by other providers including Troty, Bird, Dott claiming their share of Belgian riders.
In this article, we have curated a list of the active e-bike startups at present in Brussels.
Bird (USA)
Funding: €377M
Founded in 2017 by a former Uber and Lyft executive, Travis VanderZanden, Bird operates as a dockless electric scooter company developing a vehicle sharing platform. The company is on a mission is to make cities more livable by reducing car usage, traffic, and carbon emissions.
Lime (USA)
Funding: €706M
Lime is revolutionizing micro-mobility not only to improve transportation but cultivate a culture centred around active, healthy and sustainable urban living. From the electric scooter to a pedal bike, users can easily find and unlock our fleet of shared smart bikes through apps to move around the city.
Dott (The Netherlands)
Funding: €20M
Dott was founded by French duo Maxim Romain and Henri Moissinac to offer all cities and citizens safe, green, flexible and affordable mobility solutions. dott has designed its own sturdier e-scooters, with 10” wheels for reliable road grip, wider decks for the optimised centre of gravity, double brake system for safety, a speed cap at 20km/h and a longer charging autonomy.
The vehicles will also be 100% repairable, with all parts replaceable when damaged. dott is developing a local approach: it will rely on locally recruited teams to collaborate with the municipalities to develop the best solution for each city.
Tier mobility (Germany)
Funding: €27M
Tier founded by Lawrence Leuschner, Julian Blessin and Matthias Laug provides electric scooters for rent on demand to reach the last mile in the cities. Users can find and hire scooters through their app. The company wants to fight the current status quo of polluted cities, smog and ineffective and overpriced transportation modes together with their users and local communities.
Troty (Belgium)
Funding: NA
Troty is bringing electric scooter-sharing in free-float. You can now trace, book and ride an electric scooter, keyless. The firm sees its fleet as offering a simple solution to congestion in the capital and aims to help fill the niche between journeys which are too long to make on foot but too short to go by car. A specially created application helps users to find the nearest available scooter.
Flash (Circ) (Germany)
Funding: €55M
The e-scooter startup Flash (renamed as Circ), which was founded by Lukasz Gadowski, is now called Circ. Recently, the company clocked up 1 million rides in just 4.5 months since launch. According to Gadowski, “Circ evokes the circles of our wheels in your smartphone that connects you to us. Circ, therefore, reflects how our vehicles circumnavigate each city as they are.” The company aims to create safer, cleaner, better-connected journeys for everyone.
Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.
