Onomotion raises € 21 million to expand e-cargo bike city logistics • businessroundups.org

located in Berlin Onomotion has come up with a scalable way to run micromobility powered city logistics: electric cargo bikes with built-in cover against the elements and attachable containers. Today, Onomotion has several hundred vehicles on the road in Germany with logistics partners such as UPS, DPD and Hermes. In the coming years, the company plans to expand to several thousand vehicles in Europe and North America.

Onomotion just closed Series A, with $6 million ($6.3 million) in equity and $15 million ($15.7 million) in debt. Equity comes from Proeza Ventures, Zu na mi GmbH, the European Innovation Council and existing investors; and the debt, in the form of a bond, comes from GLS Bank. Onomotion will repay GLS after seven years, including 5.5% annual interest, said Beres Seelbach, co-founder and CEO. The director said Onomotion will use the debt to buy more vehicles so it can scale up its business.

The funding comes as more cities and logistics companies look for both more sustainable and efficient parcel delivery solutions in densely populated urban centers.

“We want to go to international markets in Europe like Paris or Brussels and then to North America, the United States and Canada,” Seelbach told businessroundups.org. “We want to improve the vehicle, make it even better by adding new features and building new versions, maybe with different modules. And of course we also want to invest in the marketing and sales team.”

Onomotion’s vehicle-as-a-service business model means that customers pay a monthly fee for vehicles, containers, chargers, maintenance and service. The startup also offers a fleet management program and provides over-the-air software updates so vehicle mechanics can continually improve, Seelbach said.

Since the company is largely vertically integrated — Onomotion designs its own vehicles and assembles them in Berlin — Onomotion can tailor containers to different customer needs. For example, an IT customer uses a container built with specific compartments to securely store laptops and other gadgets, Seelbach said.

Most of Onomotion’s customers have their own delivery drivers, but the startup is slowly growing into another business unit offering a logistics operations team.

“15% to 20% of our revenue this year will come from logistics-as-a-service,” said Seelbach. “Many of our customers have said it is difficult to find a driver. It is a big headache to organize the last mile logistics… So for some of our customers we do everything from giving the vehicles to the drivers.”

Seelbach said Onomotion wants to expand that service to cities in Germany beyond Berlin and Hamburg, where it is currently offered.

“We have a pipeline of new customers for this business division,” he said.