18 million euros for Unu Motors

The start-up is making a strategy shift at the same time. The electric scooter maker's sharing division is being scrapped and its workforce is shrinking.

Berlin-based Unu Motors is receiving an investment of 18 million euros. This is reported by Gründerszene

. According to the report, existing investors in particular have put money into the Berlin-based startup. Among them are Berlin-based VC Capnamic Ventures, French backer Iris Capital and Dutch venture capitalist Ponooc. New to the investor round is a strategic investor from Singapore.

The startup plans to use the money to speed up production of its vehicles and focus more on B2C business. To do so, it's giving up its sharing division entirely, which amounts to a change in strategy. "We honestly got bogged down with our strategy," co-founder Pascal Blum told Gründerszene

. "We went into four markets, built a new scooter and developed a sharing solution at the same time." In some cases, private customers are still waiting for the pre-ordered scooters today.

With the change in strategy, the number of employees is reduced from 120 to 85. The company had only founded the sharing division in 2019 in the first place. "In the sharing business, we would become an interchangeable supplier, where the brand, the design or the quality counts little," says Blum. Here, he says, it's all about price and capacity to scale. "This is in stark contrast to the retail business and we would have had to make a lot of compromises," Blum tells Gründerszene

.

With its strategic partner from Singapore, the Berlin-based startup now hopes to see improvement in its supply chains. "For the first half of the year, we now already have all the parts together to be able to finish the scooters and deliver them in mid-February," Blum said.