Our Investment in Voi

Having closely followed the evolution of the e-scooter market and its potential, we are delighted to be investing in Swedish e-scooter startup Voi. Europe is a natural market for the low-pollution, low-impact scooter to succeed in. We believe over 350 European cities are accessible to e-scooters and this mode of transport has huge potential to improve how people move around cities and influence how urban centres are planned, all while reducing pollution.

We’ve seen many companies tackling this immense opportunity, but not only were Voi the first European company with scooters on the streets, as a Swedish native, I experienced how well they were executing in Stockholm and how they were truly changing how people commute and travel across the city.

We were incredibly impressed with Voi’s founders Fredrik and Douglas; their military backgrounds driving their operational excellence and focus on execution, combined with their very Swedish sensibility towards the regulators. And their approach is working, Voi has achieved 200k rides in just two months.

Voi is actually our second investment in Stockholm alongside Balderton — the first one being Furhat Robotics — and one of a number of global investments at Seed and Series A. Since 2012, 80% of our capital has been invested in the UK but we look to maintain our global perspective by selectively working with entrepreneurs and investors we’ve worked with before in key ecosystems, and in particular where the UK will be an important market over time. In these cases we look to be a helpful partner supporting the lead investment team.

We’ve also made several investments in other key markets including Tel Aviv where we’ve invested in Otonomo and HiBob with Bessemer; we’ve invested with Point9 in Madrid with OnTruck and we invested with our good friends at Cherry in Berlin’s brilliant InFarm.

Here we’re really excited about the opportunity to work with Balderton’s Lars Fjelsoe-Nielsen again. Lars was responsible for amazing work at Dropbox and subsequently at Uber, with his relentless focus on growth.

And we’re just thrilled to be working with Voi, helping in markets they’re currently operating in, as well as when they come to the UK.

Kör hårt!