We're building AppScooter, also known as "The Dutch Tesla on 2 Wheels".
Business overview
Location | Delft, Netherlands |
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Social media | |
Website | etergo.com |
Sectors | Automotive & Transport Mixed Digital/Non-Digital Mixed B2B/B2C |
Company number | 62037285 |
Incorporation date | 1 Dec 2014 |
Investment summary
Idea
Introduction
At Etergo, we are re-inventing personal mobility, starting with the scooter.
Our first product is AppScooter®. The all-electric scooter that accelerates from 0 to 45 km/h in 3.3 sec, has 65 litre storage space and goes up to 400km.
With a 7" touchscreen and handlebar controls, AppScooter® safely runs Android apps in its cockpit.
Intended impact
We want to solve two major problems:
• The extreme pollution that petrol scooters are still causing.
• The large number of traffic deaths caused by smartphone usage while driving.
After a steady decline over the last four decades, US traffic deaths rose again with 8% in 2015 as a result of smartphone use while driving, becoming the main cause of traffic deaths in many countries. In 2014, 413,000 people in the US were involved in an accident that was caused by distraction while driving, and annually 1.25 million people die in traffic accidents worldwide.
Using a smartphone on a scooter can be even more dangerous than in a car. While doing so, you have to take at least one hand off the handlebar, which can lead to instability and a loss of almost half your braking capacity.
To get electric scooters adopted on a mass-market scale, it is important to make a scooter that people actually want and will choose over existing petrol incumbents. We believe that to do this properly, you need to create a product that is not just electric, but radically better in at least 3 major aspects. To achieve this, we’ve made a scooter that we believe is better by a landslide.
Keeping your phone in your pocket and your hands on the handlebars at all times is hard work these days. We want to make it easier and a lot safer for you. With AppScooter's handlebar controls, you can control your phone through bluetooth, answer calls, stream music and control navigation & other driver friendly apps on the 7" touchscreen. When driving we prevent intrusive notifications and only enable driver safe controls. We help you focus on what's important through our integrated smart camera detection systems. When standing still and it's safe, you can use the 7" touchscreen's full functionality.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Our key accomplishments to date are:
• Raised €3m from Angel Investors online (including the largest online funding round in The Netherlands in 2015).
• 180.000+ accounts created on our website, 155.000+ Designs created, 39.000+ designs shared.
• Built a 14-people Dream Team with Experience in (electric)scooters, Electric Racing Vehicles, (online) Marketing and Entrepreneurship.
• Built a proof of concept prototype in the early days to validate our drivetrain architecture and test composite monocoque feasibility.
• Built Alpha, our Engineering Validated prototype that exceeded our engineering and pricing targets.
• Optimised our composite monocoque for durability and mass manufacturing.
• Developed our own engine together with our Dutch electric engine development partner.
• Started our null-series design freeze with the first molds being engineered by the manufacturing company VDL.
• Applied for two 50+ pages of patents that include all inventions.
Below you will find a broader overview of our accomplishments in, amongst others, market validation and IP.
It's important to protect the technical innovations that enable our unique selling points and to build a strong and dominant premium brand. We applied for multiple technical patents which include over 30 inventions, one design patent to protect our design and we are the exclusive owner of the AppScooter trademark in the EU.
Monetisation strategy
We plan to start by selling scooters directly to consumers and businesses. Cutting out the middleman enables us to sell our scooters at awesome prices and get first-hand feedback in an early enough phase to improve our value proposition.
AppScooter has all the necessary hard- and software to be completely shareable out-of-the-box. With a range up to 400km, you can maximize utility making it ideal for scooter sharing and deliveries. Especially with it's large 65-liter trunk that fits 2 helmets, a full beer crate, 8 pizzas or 2 large grocery bags.
We plan to use a hybrid sales model that includes concept stores in premium locations, local test drives, and a user-friendly website where you can design and order your AppScooter.
Since we want to keep our organisation agile and focus on our core competencies, we intend to use large world wide partners for distribution and servicing.
Use of proceeds
We plan to use the proceeds from this round for:
• Build & test our null-series.
• Finance final production tooling.
• Production line setup costs with Tier 1 partners.
• Hire top talented and experienced employees to prepare for our go-to-market, ramp up manufacturing, manage purchasing & quality control and coordinate with our worldwide partners for distribution and servicing.
*For more information on the referral perk, please see the guide attached in the documents section. Please note, this investment round is about getting shares in Etergo. The Perks are just a nice extra on top.
Please be aware that any discounts, rewards and/or offers listed by a company in its campaign are subject to the terms and conditions applied by that company and listed above. It is the company’s responsibility to honour such discounts, rewards and/or offers and Seedrs does not take any responsibility for them.
Market
Target market
Scooters outsell cars by almost two times. The market is estimated to be valued at $30 billion per year. Today, petrol scooters still dominate the market, and since older petrol scooters can pollute up to 2,700 times more than a heavy truck, they are starting to be banned from major cities worldwide, with Amsterdam starting January 2018.
With the highest scooter density in Europe and the second highest adoption of electric vehicles in the world, The Netherlands - and Amsterdam in specific - is one of the best places to start:
• The Netherlands has the highest number of scooter owners per 1000 people in Europe.
• Amsterdam will ban all petrol scooters built before 2011, starting in 2018.
• Growing scooter market: The number of scooters in the Netherlands increased by 60% between 2006 and 2014, becoming one of the largest scooter markets in Europe.
• The Dutch government accepted a motion to phase out all 1M petrol scooters in expectation of upcoming EU laws, meaning the rest of EU may likely follow.
Characteristics of target market
Because people differ in their product adoption, not everyone can be reached with the same sales channels and activities. The serviceable addressable market is divided into groups of people of which the adoption rate of innovations differ. This differentiation is, amongst others, influenced by social status (some people want to be first, while other first want to see social acceptance from others), relative affluence and the marketing channels that are used.
Having a clear overview of who you are selling to is crucial in order to target your marketing efforts appropriately, but also to set the right tone of voice in your communications.
Our target customer is described by combining many different market research papers that contain data about people who buy scooters, and our own data that we gathered. As you can see from the data above, the bulk of our target customers are mostly males between 35 and 55 who live in an urban or suburban area.
Where innovators and early adopters for smartphones and cheaper products are usually between the ages of 18 and 35, data of more expensive products like electric vehicles (both low-end and high-end) shows a shift towards an older average age.
Our research shows that our target customer tends to be a man that is active on social media, and has an interest in cars, sports and technology amongst others. Additionally, we have extremely detailed interest profiles from our online Facebook campaigns in which we have already identified different personas of interest.
Marketing strategy
We position Etergo as a premium brand. We do not just market on being green, rather on the aspects that add value to our customer’s lifestyle and the use cases our product directly unlocks through it's various USPs such as: range, acceleration, storage space and apps in the cockpit. We focus on adding value throughout the entire customer journey, from first visit to the delivery and service experience. The graph above illustrates where we aim to position ourselves in comparison to our competitors.
Our website is our primary sales channel and is completely engineered for engagement & converting visitors into subscribers, and subscribers into ambassadors and/or buying customers. The entire flow, from the initial visit to an AppScooter reservation is optimized for conversion for every step of the cycle.
The viral loop is the growth multiplier of all our marketing efforts and has been built into the DNA of our website. This yields an exponential organic growth of our reach and effectively multiplies the effect of every M&S euro spent. People that visit our website are encouraged to invite their friends and colleagues through our Referral Program & Design Contest.
Competition strategy
To our knowledge, Etergo is the first scooter that runs apps, which, together with our composite monocoque, grants us a unique advantage over existing and future competitors. However, since the electric scooter market is enormous there are some serious competitors to consider. Below we give you an overview of the ones we think are most relevant.
We also distinguish ourselves from competitors on the initial target market from a business perspective, as our initial market will be Europe, in contrast to our competitors who are mainly focusing on Asia. Govecs is from Germany, but focusses on mainly on the b2b segment.
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