Tech forward e-bike maker VanMoof hits the breaks
VanMoof tried to best the Apple of e-bikes. They were pretty, had a nice minimalist design, and bucked the trend of building a bike on readily available components. They counted on their style and tech stack to stand out. But we’ve seen the e-bike market explode with innovative products across the price spectrum in the last two years. Now it’s reported they don’t have a CEO and are trying to get funding to stay afloat.
VanMoof’s approach has been highly verticalized to date: It has designed the bike itself as well as the integrated app that controls it. It also has eschewed using off-the-shelf components in the building of the bike — a very common aspect of how bikes are made and fixed generally — opting instead to work with suppliers to manufacture custom components.