Dott (www.ridedott.com), the European micromobility company, announces today the completion of an $85 million Series B funding round led by Sofina, a Belgium-based investment company listed on Euronext Brussels (ISIN BE0003717312) and a supportive partner of entrepreneurs and families managing growing companies, and co-led by Estari, a growth equity investor in European sustainability technology leaders.
New and existing investors including EQT Ventures, Prosus Ventures, Aberdeen Standard Investments, Estari (as co-lead), Expon Capital, Felix Capital, FJ Labs, Invest-NL, McRock Capital, Quadia and various angel investors are participating in the round. The investment comprises a mix of equity and asset-backed debt financing.
Since its creation in October 2018, Dott has grown to be one of the leading players in Europe, with a live fleet of more than 30,000 e-scooters in 5 countries. This Series B investment is testament to Dott’s differentiated strategy:
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Capital efficient & profitable growth: With a fraction of the capital raised by peers, Dott has built large, dominant and profitable strongholds in highly prized micromobility markets in Europe.
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Operational excellence: All operations have been managed 100% in-house since day one. Behind the scenes, the Dott Operating System brings increased safety, stronger reliability for the city, a much better overall user experience and industry leading unit economics (EBIT positive across all cities, even during Covid lockdowns).
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Sustainability focus: Core to Dott’s strategy is delivering a truly sustainable service to its users, cities and the planet. By reducing its carbon footprint across the entire lifecycle of vehicles – from the supply chain (using the most durable hardware) to street operations (swappable batteries, renewable energy, electric fleet for logistics) to end-of-life processes (“repair, reuse, recycle”) – the company has driven a 56% reduction in CO2 emissions over the past 12 months.
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Lasting & collaborative partnerships with cities: Dott is a trusted operator in each city the company operates. As a proof point, Dott was selected first in the Paris and Lyon license tenders, two of the largest and most complex cities to operate in Europe.
The $85m investment will be used to:
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Enhance the service for users: Offering the most available, reliable and affordable solution to help more and more riders in their daily life.
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Go multimodal: Launching new micromobility vehicles to European cities, starting with e-bikes in summer 2021.
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Expand to new cities and countries for example in Spain and the UK: With the same disciplined and capital efficiency strategy.
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Raise industry standards on sustainability: Dott is proud to announce a newly appointed Sustainability Board, an industry first, which will lead with concrete actions to offer the most sustainable mobility service to transform European cities.
“We’ve shown in the first two years that we can offer a great service for users, good for the planet and good for European cities.” said Henri Moissinac, CEO, and co-founder, Dott. “We think we have a winning formula now, combining operational excellence, hardware & software expertise, collaboration with city stakeholders and capital efficiency. Thanks to our new and existing investors, our aim is now to accelerate, serve more users and more cities, in the most reliable and affordable way possible”.
“We are confident about our future partnership with Dott. We were impressed by the management and look forward to helping the company shaping the future of urban transportation, in a context where it is clear that conventional urban mobility cannot be sustained” said Harold Boël, CEO, Sofina.
“When we first partnered with Dott in 2018, we recognized the team was building a sustainable, long-term business that stood out amongst others in Europe and we are excited to continue with them on their journey,” said Martin Tschopp, CEO, Prosus Ventures. Through incorporating top-notch safety and usability features on their e-scooters and e-bikes, offering first-to-market benefits to riders, and working collaboratively with local governments to ensure their solutions work seamlessly within the communities where they operate, Dott has become a true leader in the micro-mobility sector in Europe.”
