INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Anyone who has tried to ride an electric scooter knows the likelihood of finding one with a charged battery is quite low
Swiftmile, which just landed a contract with the city of Austin, supplies cities and private operators with docks equipped to park and
charge both scooters and e-bikes.What Swiftmile offers serves as a win for operators, riders and cities alike
Operators can provide a better (charged) product to their customers, the likelihood of finding a charged scooter increases and cities can
better control sidewalk clutter and issues pertaining to improper parking
Unfortunately, the downside falls on those relying on charging scooters to make extra income.When Swiftmile deploys in Austin, the plan is
to start with 10 stations, which comes out to about 80 parking slips
The company hopes to do this by the end of the year
Austin has become a major micromobility hub, with seven providers operating a total of 17,600 vehicles in the city
operators by the minute, but not to exceed a certain amount, depending on the market
Initially, the docking system will be open to all operators in order to show them how it works and how beneficial it can be
scooter there, but only Swiftmile customers will get their scooters charged.In addition to Austin, Swiftmile has also launched a mobility
hub in Berlin, and plans to deploy more
On the operator side, Swiftmile has partnered with Spin to create branded charging hubs exclusively for Spin scooters
In the United States , Swiftmile has deployed more than 50 stations
where Swiftmile will deploy about 50 stations in early 2020
start as a bike-share operator for private companies, including Tesla and Google
To date, the company has raised a little more than $5 million from Sinai Ventures, Verizon Ventures and others
Additionally, Swiftmile just received a term sheet for a $12 million Series A round.*Verizon owns TechCrunch, but has no influence on our
