Electrical bike startup Cake filed for chapter February 1, CEO Stefan Ytterborn has confirmed to TechCrunch.
The Swedish firm was in the midst of a funding spherical, simply previous to the submitting, however apparently the withdrawal of an investor was what tipped the corporate over the sting, in response to Swedish media studies. Ytterborn declined to touch upon what is going to occur subsequent. Whereas it’s unclear if Cake filed for chapter safety or insolvency, Ytterborn did inform media outlet Dagens Industri that he had nothing else “in thoughts however to discover a resolution in a single format or one other.” His feedback counsel the corporate filed for cover.
Finest recognized for making high-design bikes, Cake raised a $14 million Collection A in 2019. It adopted that with a $60 million Collection B spherical in 2021 led by Swedish pension fund AMF. The capital was meant to fund manufacturing amenities in Europe, North America and Asia and to scale up its retail capabilities, the corporate mentioned on the time.
Cake has struggled as of late, although. In November, it issued a recall for certainly one of its mopeds due to a danger that the steering column might break. Just some weeks later, it recalled its flagship Kalk e-motorcycle after a unit caught fireplace in a South Korean dealership. Ytterborn confirmed final week to Swedish outlet Breakit that the corporate wasn’t going to have the ability to make wage funds to staff.
Cake’s struggles are simply the most recent within the wider world of e-mobility. Superpedestrian went out of enterprise and Fowl filed for chapter. Micromobility.com — previously referred to as Helbiz — was delisted from the Nasdaq inventory change. Tier and Dott determined to merge with a view to discover a higher path ahead.
Maybe most related to Cake, although, is the case of Vanmoof. The high-end e-bike maker out of the Netherlands filed for chapter safety final yr. Nevertheless it was capable of finding a purchaser in electrical scooter firm Lavoie that has since gotten the model again up and operating.
