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The founders of music streaming app SoundCloud have launched an e-bike subscription venture.
The startup, Dance, has introduced an invite-only service in Berlin this week, with subscriptions priced at €59 per month.
Users download an app and register for the service, and a fully-assembled e-bike is delivered to a subscriber within 24 hours. If the bike needs maintenance or gets stolen, the user alerts Dance via the app and the bike is replaced “immediately”. The founders’ goal is to emphasise the community aspects of the rental service, just as they did with SoundCloud.
Dance plans to go international once it has refined its bike design, smartphone app and operating model. Berlin venture capital fund BlueYard backed its €4.4 million seed round, along with a group of entrepreneurs and individual investors, Dance said.
“We were all excited about transforming cities, the climate impact and the health impact of having more people go to work by bike,” said Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, co-founder and CEO of Dance, who stepped down from running SoundCloud last year. “Now, the silver lining of the pandemic is that a lot of cities have said: Let’s just accelerate our micromobility infrastructure.”
His partners are fellow SoundCloud founder Alexander Ljung and Christian Springub, co-founder of Jimdo, a website building and hosting company.
“When you don’t want your bike any more after several weeks or months, you can just stop the subscription service and someone will come and pick the bike up,” added Quidenus-Wahlforss.
