The Graz-based BikeCityGuide gets urban cyclers on the right track. Recently, the bicycle navigation app exceeded their crowdfunding target on greenrocket and managed to raise 136.550 euros instead of the initially planned 50.000.
The platform greenrocket offers investors the opportunity to join into a business by purchasing participant papers. “With the crowd investing campaign we wanted to give other interested people the chance to be part of the company and its value,” explained CEO Daniel Kofler. In total, 160 backers used this chance and invested between 250 and 10.000 euros into the startup. According to the BikeCityGuide, their app has been downloaded 150.000 times since the launch in 2012.
Making cities move – next stop London
With the raised money they have big plans for the near future: “First of all, we want to start producing our smartphone mount Finn in different colours. […] But more important for us, we want to bring BikeCityGuide to UK, especially to London,” said Daniel Kofler.
The startup was founded in 2011 by the former bike messenger Daniel Kofler (read our profile here) and Andreas Stückl. While the passionate bikers started their business with 1.500 euros, two years later they were already cashflow positive and expect the first relevant profits for investors in 2015. Currently, their team consists of 14 full time employees as well as several freelancers.
BikeCityGuide provides an “in-app-purchase” service which means that the basic functions of their app are free but users can buy additional city packages, currently for over 35 places all over Europe. Next to running their bike navigation app, in 2013 they launched Finn (read more here), a silicon-based bikehandle sustainably produced in Austria. BikeCityGuide aims to provide a service that gets its users save through urban areas and wants to motivate more people to let go off their cars and to enjoy pedalling instead.
Photo credit: BikeCityGuide
Earning recognition Photo credit: BackWay
