The Business
We develop lightweight folding electric bikes for urban commuters – small enough to nip through traffic and avoid congestion and flexible enough to be taken anywhere.
The challenge
I’ve always had an interest in how people move around cities and was particularly frustrated at the amount of time spent sitting in traffic. We set out to make a bike that was both folding and electric from scratch, thereby giving commuters as much flexibility and fun as possible.
Before we joined the Allia programme, we had already designed, built and delivered our first batch of ebikes. Our next focus was working on a wider view of our impact – our mission being to get more people out of cars and onto bikes, as well as our environmental impact. We wanted to think about manufacturing and the life cycle of our products, and were also preparing to pursue the European e-bike market.
The result – how the programme helped
The biggest benefit of the programme was working with other ventures. If they were doing something similar then we could swap tips. If they were doing something different, it was an opportunity to think about shared problems in a different way.
The content covered a lot of the things that we had already identified as areas to focus on, so it aligned really well with where we were heading. The climate focus was really valuable – everyone wants to do the right thing but going about it the right way can be confusing. The Allia team were amazing – it was so great to know that they were always willing to give their time to help you and hold you accountable.
Allia’s Climate Accelerator is great for anyone who has figured out where they are headed and what they want to build, but needs some help figuring out the details of how that will work, particularly in terms of contributing to efforts to battle global climate change.
