Micro-mobility pioneer Tier has acquired European bike-share leader nextbike, extending its major commitment to bikes, and now covering 400 cities with 250,000 vehicles, creating what the company is calling the industry’s first truly multi-modal platform across bikes, e-bikes, cargo bikes, e-scooters and e-mopeds.
Nextbike has been operating bike rental systems since 2004, mostly as the exclusive operator for the cities, and has established a profitable shared mobility business model in its 17 years of existence. Together with nextbike, Tier’s vision of a complete portfolio of mobility options is now becoming reality.
“The acquisition of Nextbike – with its unrivalled experience and relationships across hundreds of cities – is a unique opportunity to take bikeshare to the next level, getting more people out of cars and offering the most sustainable mobility solution,” says Lawrence Leuschner, CEO and co-founder of Tier Mobility. “I have always held a deep belief in the transformative power of bikes in cities – and it is great to see the bike market is growing rapidly. Our shared values of sustainability and respect for cities across two strong leadership teams, underpinned by TIER’s financial backing and capital efficiency, present an unstoppable, joint mission to change mobility for good.”
“Since 2004, we have been providing sustainable mobility to hundreds of thousands of people every day and have established bike sharing as a component of public transport worldwide,” says Leonhard von Harrach, CEO of Nextbike. “We decided to partner with Tier because there is a significant common ground in the corporate culture. Above all, however, we are united in our mission to make cities more liveable with our mobility services and to do something about traffic congestion, pollution and noise. The fact that this is a reality today is due to, among other things, the founders of Nextbike, who were pioneers in the European mobility sharing market and were already renting out bicycles when there were no apps.”
The acquisition is the latest significant move in a successful year to date for Tier. The company has expanded its presence to 16 countries in Europe and the Middle East with market entries in Hungary, the Netherlands and Bahrain. The major investment in bikeshare follows Tier committing heavily to e-bikes in recent months, with launches in London and Stockholm part of an expansion of its e-bike service across six countries.
Nextbike also looks back on an eventful year and has further consolidated its position as bike-sharing market leader. Despite Covid, a 50% increase in usage was recorded. In total, 60 projects across 17 countries were supplied with new bikes in the last 18 months. Highlights include the modernization of KVB bike in Cologne with 3,000 new bikes, the network expansions in Budapest, Bilbao, and Gothenburg, and market entry to Italy and Montenegro. In September, the city of Vienna awarded nextbike the contract for the realisation of the new “WienMobil Rad” with over 3,000 bikes.
Tier has purchased 100% of the shares in the Leipzig-based bike-sharing company from the previous majority shareholder Co-Investor Partners, an equity investor focused on high-growth companies in the DACH region, and all other shareholders in an all-cash transaction. The amount of the purchase price and further financial details of the transaction will not be disclosed.
