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Check out the 30-slide pitch deck Cowboy, an e-bike startup, used to raise $80 million in a round backed by Tiger Global
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- Belgian e-bike startup Cowboy has raised $80 million in Series C funding.
- The company offers high-end e-bikes in Europe and wants to expand in the US.
- Existing investors, including Tiger Global and Index Ventures, backed the latest round.
High-end e-bike startup Cowboy has raised $80 million in fresh funds as it looks to take advantage of the booming urban mobility market.
The Belgian company, which was founded in 2017, raised the fresh funds in a Series C round backed by existing top-tier investors, including the US hedge-fund giant Tiger Global and the Revolut backer Index Ventures.
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In Europe, direct-to-consumer e-bike sales are set to reach 17 million units sold annually by 2030, up from 3.7 million in 2019. Meanwhile in the US, Cowboy’s most recent target market, e-bike sales surged by 240% in a year that pushed spending on cycling equipment to $8.5 billion, research from NPD found. In addition, e-bike subscription schemes have also been growing in popularity.
“Demand has been close to the targets we planned, and it’s been doubling year on year. We deeply believe that it’s not a fad, and this is a long-lasting trend that will continue for many years to come,” said Adrien Roose, Cowboy’s CEO.
“We decided to structure a new round to continue our momentum and accelerate US expansion, so we went earlier than planned,” he added.
The new funds come in from Exor, HCVC, and Siam Capital, alongside funding from existing investors, including Tiger Global, Index Ventures, Eothen, Isomer Opportunities Fund, Future Positive Capital, and Triple Point Capital.
In September, Cowboy launched in the US earlier than expected. But like many manufacturers, the company has had a number of challenges relating to global supply-chain constraints, with issues stemming from both the availability of components and drastically increased shipping costs.
“The situation is insane and exceptional, and we’re not expecting it to change this year,” Roose added.
“It’s a daily battle on components, so we need to build strong relationships with our suppliers, which is what makes them want to work with us, and that’s obviously been harder without being able to travel,” he said.
To that end, Cowboy plans to use the new funding to continue both its geographic expansion and product-development plans. The company is also set to open retail stores in Paris and Berlin.
The cost of e-bikes — the Cowboy 4 costs about $3,000 — is naturally top of mind, and the company has employed its own repair service alongside a secondhand offering, which Roose said was “constantly sold out.”
“Price sensitivity is clear,” Roose said. “Five years ago people wouldn’t want to pay for an e-bike, but now people see it as a real vehicle. As a young company, we couldn’t succeed without scale, so we believe that while we won’t be the cheapest, we want to be the best.”
Cowboy may well look to offer some form of financing product in the future to help users spread out costs, Roose added.
Check out Cowboy’s pitch deck below.
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