VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike maker that gained a zealous following however declared chapter final month, has been acquired by Lavoie, an upscale electrical scooter firm, the corporations introduced on Thursday.
Riders of the costly and technologically superior VanMoof bikes had been left in limbo by the corporate’s chapter, as a result of the machines are constructed from proprietary elements that solely the corporate made and lots of the bikes’ capabilities are linked to a smartphone app that runs on the corporate’s servers. Despite the thrill across the model, VanMoof had run into monetary issues that led to a manufacturing backlog and monthslong waits for gross sales and repairs.
But riders is not going to be utterly out of limbo below the brand new possession. “What they can’t expect in the first couple of weeks is definitive answers to the problems,” stated Nick Fry, the chairman of McLaren Applied, the British motorsports expertise firm that owns Lavoie.
The value of the acquisition was not disclosed, however Mr. Fry stated Lavoie would spend “tens of millions” on the transaction in addition to in investments over the approaching months to “rectify some of the challenges we face.”
“This is not going to be a walk in the park,” he stated. “This is going to be a challenge.”
One of the brand new proprietor’s priorities, he added, is bettering the supply of elements and repairs, one thing that had turn into more and more troublesome for VanMoof homeowners. Regular bike retailers couldn’t — or typically wouldn’t — repair the bikes.
Mr. Fry stated he needed different bike mechanics to have the ability to repair VanMoof bikes and possibly make the bikes out there on the market in retailers aside from the retailers owned by the model.
Another precedence, he stated, is to handle a number of the reliability points that plagued the bikes.
“It’s broken often,” Johan Alderden, a VanMoof proprietor from the Dutch city of Aalsmeer, stated this summer season after information of the chapter unfold. But echoing many different homeowners, Mr. Alderden stated that “if it’s working, it’s awesome.”
It is unclear what is going to occur to prospects who paid for VanMoof bikes however had not but acquired them by the point the corporate went bankrupt, Mr. Fry stated, including that it was “not something we could reach an agreement on with the previous owner.”
Lavoie just lately began gross sales of a high-end electrical scooter, which prices greater than $2,000, based mostly on Formula 1 applied sciences developed by its guardian firm.
VanMoof, which was based in 2009 by two brothers, Ties and Taco Carlier, tripled its gross sales within the pandemic and had raised greater than $180 million in funding. The bikes’ design put the battery contained in the body, serving to defend it from rain and thieves, and giving VanMoof bikes their signature streamlined look.
As the e-bike market boomed, the corporate bought about 200,000 bikes for upward of $2,000 every, and opened shops throughout Europe, the United States and Japan. In the e-bike world, VanMoof was typically likened to Apple or Tesla, given its elegant designs, heavy use of customized supplies and premium costs.
“VanMoof and Lavoie fit together perfectly,” Eliott Wertheimer, Lavoie’s chief government, stated in a press release. (Lavoie has additionally been in comparison with Apple for its scooters’ glossy, high-tech engineering.) For VanMoof homeowners around the globe, Mr. Wertheimer stated he needed to “keep those riders on the road.”