Cogo, the shared mobility aggregator, raises €1 million from PreSeed Ventures and prominent business angels. Cogo is changing the booming rideshare market and aims to take it even further with new funding. Their goal? To solve transparency and infrastructure issues while unleashing the full possibilities of shared mobility.
The shared mobility market has explodeld in an incredibly short amount of time. According McKinsey & Company, it’s now worth $7 billion (around €5.8 billion), and the value is projected to exceed $500 billion (around €420.5 billion) by 2030. You’d be hard-pressed to find many Europeans who have not heard of Voi, Tier, Bolt, Lime, ShareNow or Donkey Republic. Today, there are hundreds of rideshare operators across Europe, and there are probably just as many opinions about the booming trend. The rapid development has led to a fragmented market, where regulations and infrastructure cannot keep up, just as users have no transparency in price, availability or terms of service.
A team of momondo founders and former executives have seen the need for rebooting the micro-mobility market to address the industry’s growing pains, just as they did in the travel business. As a result, Cogo was launched in 2020 amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Now, it has recently closed a €1 million pre-seed round from Danish PreSeed Ventures. High-profile business angels such as momondo’s former Managing Director, Pia Vemmelund, the early investor in momondo Jens Willumsen, and serial entrepreneur turned investor Thomas Weikop also participated in the round. The Danish Innovation Fund has also awarded Cogo with the Innofounder grant.
Robin Eriksson, Co-founder Cogo: “Our founding team has helped millions of users find and compare the best flight and travel deals, and we’re now bringing our experience from momondo to the shared mobility market. With Cogo, we are aiming to release the untapped potential of this new industry. The big issues for users and regulators completely hinder the many benefits of shifting from private cars to shared rides, which could improve congestion and, most importantly, reduce carbon emissions. Looking ahead, we’re confident that Cogo will contribute towards a positive impact in the market.”
Pia Vemmelund, Investor/board member of Cogo said: ”I have faith in the team and believe there are many similarities between the upcoming Cogo journey and the journey the team and I had with momondo. With a purpose I support, a team I trust and a market with a very promising outlook, it was an easy decision to invest and support Cogo. I really look forward to working with this team again.”
Cogo was founded by Robin Eriksson and Bibi Blomqvist, who recently expanded their co-founding team with Martin Røssell as the CTO. Martin was part of the founding team of momondo and drove the technical development of the travel search engine for almost 15 years.
Alexander Viterbo-Horten, Investment Director PreSeed Ventures: “We have seen thousands of founders pitching and after investing in 400 of them, we know that in the earliest stages, it is the team that sets the best out from the rest. It is exceptional to see a co-founding team like Cogo’s. Their experience from building momondo from foundation to a $550 million acquisition by Booking Holdings will be a huge advantage as we head to market. The traction they have proven with Cogo in so little time is very convincing.”
According to recent research from the US market by NACTO, shared bikes and e-scooters saw 136 million trips in 2019, an uplift of 60% from 2018. Around 45% of people who used a micro-mobility ride would have otherwise completed their trip with a private car or ride-hail vehicle. It further shows that most shared mobility trips are short, averaging 11-12 minutes and between 1.5-2.5 km. In total, 35% of car trips in the US are less than 3 km. Shifting more trips to shared mobility could help ease issues like congestion, and carbon emissions.
