One of the biggest e-scooter operators in British cities is preparing to raise more than £100m from investors amid booming take-up of the vehicles.
Sky News has learnt that Voi Technology has hired bankers from Credit Suisse and The Raine Group to coordinate a new funding round with prospective investors.
The move comes less than a year after Voi, which operates in cities including Birmingham, Cambridge and Liverpool, raised $150m from new and existing shareholders.
An executive at one fund said the company’s latest capital-raising underlined the voracious appetite of e-scooter companies for more funding as they seek to expand and outlast competitors.
During recent years, companies including Bird, Lime, Dott and Tier have raised hundreds of millions of pounds in aggregate to build market share in urban areas across Europe.
In London, Dott, Lime and Tier were selected by London councils and transport authorities to participate in e-scooter trials despite ongoing warnings about the safety of users and pedestrians.
Voi, which is based in Stockholm, was founded in 2018, and counts prominent venture capital investors such as Balderton Capital, Creandum and VNV Global among its shareholders.
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Raine itself led the company’s most recent fundraising nine months ago.
“We and our city partners fully intend to achieve our target of Vision Zero – e-scooters that generate zero carbon, zero accidents and zero reasons not to embrace the future of transport,” Fredrik Hjelm, one of Voi’s co-founders, said at the time.
Voi did not respond to several requests for comment on its fundraising plans.