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Helbiz, Inc.

Industry	Dockless electric scooter sharing, dockless bike sharing, Car sharing
Founders	Salvatore Palella
Headquarters	New York, New York, United States
Area served	Asia, Europe, North America
Website	Official Twitter

Helbiz, Inc.

Helbiz

Helbiz is an Italian-American company founded on the 16th of October 2015 by Italian serial entrepreneur, Salvatore Palella. Headquartered in New York City with office presence in Europe and Asia, Helbiz provides tech-driven, on-demand transportation solutions that help people move seamlessly within cities. Helbiz focuses on micro-mobility and strives to provide first- and last-mile transportation solutions that are timely, efficient, affordable and safe. The vision of the company is seeking to help cities reduce their dependence on cars by providing sustainable forms of personal transportation by providing more environmentally friendly transportation options. On-board connectivity, electrification, shared transportation and on-demand availability are the features that drive the development of the Helbiz brand already present in over 10 countries around the world. It is in this scenario in which the innovative mobility service has been inserted, offering users and in particular individuals who live in urban contexts practical and economically advantageous means of transportation for medium and short distance ranged trips.

In Italy, the company’s current main market, Helbiz is considered a micro-mobility pioneer as it began operations with its electric scooter sharing service in the country on the 18th of October 2018, paving the way for the legalization of electric scooters in the country and the approval of the national micro-mobility decree in 2019. Helbiz was created on three major principles which, acting as constant priorities, shape the company’s business model, its operational structure and all public communications’ execution. These principles are User Safety, Community Integration and Institutional Support. Through deep collaboration with governments and individual municipalities Helbiz has been able to integrate its multimodal dockless shared mobility services into each local community and maintain maximum emphasis towards its founding principles. Helbiz believes dockless mobility can only work in the long run by acting responsibly and in continuous collaboration with city partners. In the dockless mobility space, an industry still in its infancy, Helbiz has consistently demonstrated a commitment to doing dockless shared mobility the right way – in a way that is responsible, safe, and suited to any local community. This can only be achieved if each and every city deployment is considered a true partnership and emphasis is given to involving local government officials in every step of the integration, from the strategic planning to execution rollout and distribution of electric vehicles to special community engagement opportunities.

Services

Helbiz aim is to provide customers with the most efficient transportation solution to meet their needs within a single app. The platform’s GPS-enabled technology allows riders to locate and unlock the company’s entire mobility fleet using the Helbiz mobile app and then to simply lock the vehicle in any commonly accepted parking spot. The company’s micro-mobility offering currently includes the rental of electric dockless e-scooters and e-bikes, and the ecosystem is expected to include e-mopeds to their offering in the near future.

• HelbizGo, Dockless e-scooters: In fourteen cities, Helbiz currently offers shared, dockless e-scooters that riders can access within the Helbiz app. E-scooters are battery-powered “stand on” scooters with handle bars and provide a flexible, fun method for travelling in urban environments, particularly for short distances.
• HelbizBike, Dockless e-bikes: In six cities, Helbiz currently offers shared, dockless e-bikes that provide riders a flexible, convenient transportation solution within urban environments. HelbizBikes are equipped with electric motors which allow riders to benefit from pedal assistance for more efficient and comfortable travels.

All Helbiz vehicles have built-in 4G/GPS-enabled technology. This enables riders to use the Helbiz app in order to locate the nearest available vehicles. This also provides the company the ability to locate and communicate with the devices when needed and to track ridership data, such as number of miles traveled and trips taken.

The Market

We operate within the transportation sharing economy and, more specifically, within the micro-mobility sector thereof. We define micro-mobility as any utilitarian electric vehicle, able to carry 1-2 passengers, below 500kg in weight (from e-bikes, to e-scooters, or e-mopeds).

The familiarity and acceptance of shared mobility is fostering the rapid adoption of micro-vehicle sharing services of scooters, e-bikes and e-mopeds as a first mile-last mile mobility option, that aligns well with many cities’ goals of reducing congestion and emissions, while offering seamless, integrated, multi-modal mobility.

While sharing economies have always existed, advancements in technologies have created a multi-billion-dollar transportation sharing industry. This growth has stemmed from the ability of people to use the internet, specifically that available on their smartphones, as a means of booking on-demand transportation. We believe that the recent development of the micro-mobility sharing economy will become widely adopted around the world in the same manner that ride sharing has. Micro-mobility is already booming, with a growth curve even faster than ride-hailing1, specifically because micro-mobility solutions solve a number of needs left unfulfilled by ride shares and the rest of the transportation sharing industry.

Business Model and Competitive Scenario

The micro-mobility market, and in particular the shared e-scooter and e-bike subsections thereof, is evolving and companies within it must be able to adapt without jeopardizing the timing, quality or quantity of their services. Helbiz competes with a substantial amount of other market participants and expects additional competitors to enter the industry in the near future. Helbiz primary competitive factors in such a competitive industry include:

• Competitive pricing,
• Number and size of cities in which shared micro-mobility services are offered, customer satisfaction with shared micro-mobility vehicles, mobile platform and payment system;
• Relationship with cities in which services are provided;
• Fleet management teams’ expertise.

Most of Helbiz current and potential competitors have significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources and may be able to devote greater resources to the deployment, servicing and sourcing of their shared vehicles. Helbiz pioneer experience, service offering and local management give Helbiz the ability to successfully operate in the micro-mobility global market in a way that our competitors cannot. In particular, we believe that we have a number of competitive advantages, including:

• Use of strategic partnerships to drive new users and increase adoption. To further enhance and grow presence in local markets, Helbiz actively focuses on partnering with national market leaders to expose its fleet and platform to millions of partners’ existing clients. In January of 2019, Helbiz formed a joint venture with Telepass, an important Italian company active in the sale or concession in use of technological equipment and the provision of payment services related to the use of such equipment. Together with Telepass, Helbiz co-branded its entire fleet in Milan, while simultaneously making the fleet available for rent through their internal platform which has over eight million monthly active paying users. These types of partnerships, not only allow Helbiz to tap into existing user bases to quickly boost ridership when entering a new market, but they also help to tap into existing governmental relationships to expedite the licensing helping to escalate the ability to scale while significantly improving brand awareness and image linking us to strong and reliable businesses.
• Commitment to the team, cities and customers. Helbiz views each city in which they operate through the lens of a partnership between Helbiz and that city. By focusing on this partnership, Helbiz believes that they are able to provide a sustainable solution to the city’s reliance on cars. Helbiz takes a city-first approach in order to tailor the services that they offer and how they offer them (including geographic, speed and parking restrictions). Helbiz believes that maintaining a healthy relationship with each city where they operate helps with regulatory matters, makes their services more attractive to the population therein and increase general visibility.
• Proprietary technology platform. Helbiz proprietary technology platform allows the company to be able to constantly monitor the platform and capture the anonymized data of all rides, riders, vehicles, and personnel with advanced analytics. Helbiz uses this data to deploy, monitor and reposition the fleet to meet demand in different areas and maximize ridership. In addition, Helbiz devices are embedded with active geofencing technology that enables cities to either shut down or reduce the speed of all vehicles that enter into a predetermined restricted area in real-time and to require parking in designated areas.
• In-house operations teams. Unlike many other micro-mobility companies, Helbiz employs in-house operation teams in each market in which they operate rather than hiring third-party contractors to overview fleets’ organization. This operation team is in charge of all aspects of fleet maintenance, from charging and repairing to deploying each morning, redeploying throughout the day and picking up at night. This provides a higher quality of fleet maintenance and protects the brand by creating a uniform user experience no matter what city the user is in.
• Local partnership model for expansion into smaller cities. Helbiz offers a partnership opportunity for independent operators in smaller cities to manage fleets of shared micro-mobility vehicles. Helbiz offers a turnkey solution that includes the vehicles’ fleet, fleet management platform, mobile app and geofencing technology. The partner would be responsible for all operations such as charging, pick up and drop off, redeployment, maintenance, etc. By utilizing this model, Helbiz has been able to gain market share in smaller cities that many larger competitors have not been focused on.
• Management team. Helbiz is led by a management team with experience in developing emerging growth companies. Our founder and Chief Executive Officer, Salvatore Palella, has successfully built and exited a multi-million-dollar start-up company. Several other executive officers have years of experience in consumer-facing industries.

Operations

Helbiz Operations Team is led by staff with experience in leading shared mobility operations and supported by the following categories of employed team members responsive to the unique needs of the cities and fully dedicated to maximising user’s security day by day:

• City Manager: Works closely with the city’s representatives and Helbiz’s technology teams to maximize vehicle usage, serve the most possible riders and communities, and deliver a reliable and safe experience for all users. The City Manager oversees e-bike and e-scooter operations in the local market, balancing operational, marketing, business, community, and public policy needs. Often employed from the local area of operations in order gain local expertise and to maximise integration with the city.
• Operations Manager. The Operations Manager manages all Mechanic and Operations Drivers activities. In addition to directing the overall distribution, rebalancing, and pick-up efforts, they will be on-call to direct Operations Drivers to any issues in a timely manner.
• Operations Driver. Helbiz employs a trained team of Operations Drivers who utilize electric vans to distribute, reposition, pick up, and charge vehicles. These drivers respond to any issues reported by users or the City and ensure timely action is taken.
• Mechanics. Helbiz employs a trained team of mechanics to inspect and service its global fleets and ensure all active vehicles are fully functional, reliable, and safe. These mechanics work closely with Helbiz’s hardware team and vendors to continuously improve the durability of the hardware and maintain high user’s safety.

Every city has a local operations team comprised of the above positions. This team actively manages vehicles on a daily basis and ensures that vehicles are available across the designated areas. In addition, every local operations team monitors vehicle locations to ensure adequate coverage based on fleet size and to ensure there is no over concentrations. Local operations teams also respond to any rebalancing requests from a particular city. Furthermore, such team picks up e-scooters (first generations) each night to charge them and swap batteries of e-scooters (second generation, with swappable batteries) and e-bikes, before redeploying them in predetermined locations based on internal data analysis, ensuring that fleets will be rebalanced daily.

Pricing

Helbiz e-scooter and e-bike sharing services have a flat unlocking fee, plus a per minute fee of riding time. Although fees vary across markets, standard fees are approximately $1 for unlocking, plus $0.15 cents per minute of riding. Individuals who qualify for state, regional, or local low-income programs are able to use Helbiz vehicles at a discount rate. In the beginning of 2020 Helbiz introduced a revolutionary subscription fee which, depending on the program chosen by the user, allows for unlimited rides on Helbiz vehicles globally on a monthly basis. The program is called Helbiz Unlimited and standard fees are approximately $29,99/month. Helbiz users have a wide choice of payment methods to pay for their rides. In the Payment section of the menu on the app users can choose whether to reload their wallet or pay for every single ride. Users are able to choose amongst the following methods of payment in order to make use of Helbiz services on a global scale:

• Debit/Credit card
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Alipay
• Tinaba

The App

Helbiz international services are available through a free mobile application, “Helbiz”, downloadable on both iOS and Android smart devices. This allows the company to obtain a precise overview of its vehicles’ locations through accurate geolocation technologies and their subsequent unlocking by scanning the identification QR code located on the handlebar of each e-scooter and e-bike in order to activate a rental. In order to terminate a rental a user can park the scooter on the spot, without having to return it to racks or other predefined points, open the Helbiz application on its mobile device and click on “End the ride”. The vehicle will make a confirmation noise to confirm the end of the rental and will become available and visible for pick up once again on the shared live Map inside every Helbiz user’s application. On the Helbiz app, any user can see the operating area of the services in a given city. Once on the map the Helbiz app shows a selection of area, technically called geofences: the area coloured with dark green represents the operational area for Helbiz e-scooter sharing service while the area coloured with a light green represents the operational area for e-bike sharing service. The green area is the zone where the rental and the circulation is permitted, while the red area represents the zones where the rental and the circulation are forbidden. Inside an e-scooter geofence, inside the green area, users can find smaller yellow areas that indicate pedestrian zones, where the circulation is permitted but scooters will automatically decrease in maximum speed power (usually from 20km/h to 6km/h). On the map there are also various red zones in which users are prohibited to transit and park.

Vehicles

Helbiz makes exclusive use of electric scooters for its sharing mobility rental services around the world. Helbiz e-scooter fleet consists of three models which are distributed in the cities where Helbiz operates depending on geographic and urban features:

• Xiaomi M365 made by Xiaomi,
• Ninebot ES2 made by Segway,
• Ninebot G30 made by Segway.

In regards to bycicles Helbiz currently operates with two products, the Greta Forever Bike and the Greta Forever Bike PAB 2.5, both produced by an early Chinese investor in the company, Forever Sharing.

All Helbiz vehicles are equipped with the following characteristics in order to provide, uniformly in every area where Helbiz operates, maximum comfort and security:

• Intelligent parking system via GPS
• Ergonomic design
• Unisex design with iron frame
• Teflon anti-rust paint
• Expansion brake for front and rear wheel
• Invisible brake lock expansion
• Anti-theft cable
• Front and rear lights

IPO and Funding

Helbiz announced the intention to file a dual list Initial Public Offering on NASDAQ and on the Borsa Italiana AIM Italia exchange. In August 2019, Helbiz announced it had completed the initial investment round for gross proceeds of approximately $7.13 million. TriPoint Global Equities, LLC was the placement agent. In October 2019, Forever Sharing, a China-based leader in the production of electric smart mobility vehicles and a subsidiary of the Zhonglu Group, acquired 5% of the share capital of Helbiz, investing 8 million dollars in the company. The investment values Helbiz at 160 million dollars. As a result of the partnership, Forever Sharing supplied Helbiz with 20,000 electric bicycles and e-scooters by the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 to deploy globally. Subject to NASDAQ requirements, the Company plans to list under the symbol “HLBZ”. Helbiz intends to use the proceeds from the offering for expansion of the Company's fleet of scooters, new territory deployment and working capital.

International Partners

• Alipay: official payment method of the Alibaba Group, allows Helbiz to accept the preferred payment solution in Asia opening its doors to 1.2 billion potential users.
• Ferrovie dello Stato Italiano: Helbiz partnered with Ferrovie dello Stato Italiano for a national collaboration with the main railway transportation player in Italy. The partnership extends to FrecciaRossa, Trenitalia's long haul high-speed trains, and Regionale, Trenitalia's ramification network which emphasises on regional transportation routes. The partnership is to further enhance the concept of multimodal micro mobility in Italy and will offer promotional prices on the use of Helbiz services to FdS users.
• Moovit: Moovit is the leading global MAAS software that helps consumers find the most convenient way to commute around one of the over 140 cities where they operate. The collaboration began in order to further integrate Helbiz's operations and vehicles with the transportation network of every city where we operate and expand our reach.
• Live Nation: global leader in entertainment and concert organization, partnered with Helbiz to benefit from a sustainable and efficient mobility solution for their venues.
• Tinaba: official payment wallet owned by Banca Profilo, allows Helbiz to accept their alternative payment solution in Italy.
• Miami FC: Helbiz became the first ever Official Sponsor and Mobility Partner of Miami FC, ULS Football club.
• Spotahome: specialised in providing medium-long term accommodation to students in the cities they operate in, partnered with Helbiz to provide their users a sustainable and efficient mobility solution.
• Ministry of Innovation and Digitalization (MID): In order to fulfill the mobility needs of specially-authorized people during COVID-19 due lockdowns in Italy, in collaboration with the Ministry of Innovation and Digitalization, Helbiz has guaranteed 25,000 rides, of 20 minutes each, completely free of charge throughout country.
• Member Of Osservatorio Nazionale Sharing Mobility: The National Platform for Shared Mobility is a joint initiative by the Sustainable Development
• Foundation, the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of Transport and is composed of over 120 members, including all shared mobility providers, institutions, local authorities and universities.
• Weroad: Helbiz partnered with Weroad: young and smart tour operator.
• Healthy Virtuoso: innovative app that allows you to challenge other people in different sports in your city. Program in partnership with Healthy Virtuoso for Intesa SanPaolo employees.
• BNL: Helbiz partnered with BNL, one of the main banks in Italy, we share the same vision about green mobility. BNL will ensure, through Helbiz services, green urban mobility for all their employees.
• Reforce: Reforce, a software and consulting company, is developing its green lifestyle and wants to give their employees free rides in the city of Turin. We share the same innovative vision to make the city a better place to live in.
• SohoHouse Roma: Helbiz and the worldwide famous club-hotel Soho House partnered to serve the guests with the urban green mobility in Rome.
• Quirinale: With this partnership all the employees of Qurinale will have a special discount using Helbiz services.
• Ministero degli Esteri: Institutional partnership between Helbiz and the Minister of the Foreign Affairs, all the employees will have the chance to move around Rome without any problem.
• Quirinale: Institutional partnership between Helbiz and Qurinale, all the employees will have the chance to move around Rome without any problem.
• Urbi: Partnership with the biggest mobility aggregator (MAAS) in Italy so Helbiz is visible on their app to easily find our vehicles.

University Partners

• La Sapienza: One of the biggest universities in Europe as a number of students, with this partnership all the students, professors and employees of the uni will have a special discount using Helbiz services.

• LUMSA: One of the most important universities in Rome, with this partnership all the students, professors and employees of the uni will have a special discount using Helbiz services.

• ESCP

• Erasmus Student Network IULM

• Erasmus Student Network Bicocca

• Erasmus Student Network Unimi Statale

• Erasmus Student Network Roma ASE

• Erasmus Student Network Unicatt

• Erasmus Student Network Polimi

• Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

• Scuola Mohole

• IULM University

• Istituto Marangoni

References

• Companies based in New York City