The e-bike startup Gleam is facing bankruptcy. Just a few more days and then it will all be over, according to the founder at Linkedin. Now he is desperately asking for money.
Mario Eibl does not want to give up his e-bike startup Gleam without a fight: “My children call Gleam their little brother”. gleam
It is rare that a founder is so open and struggling for money at Linkedin. “We need 75,000 euros in the short term, 150,000 by October and at least 500,000 to continue producing and three million euros to break even,” writes Mario Eibl. The reason: his e-cargo bike startup Gleam, which the CEO founded in Vienna ten years ago, is on the verge of collapse.
Founder paid only 50,000 euros in ten years
“We only have a few days left before we have to close our company!” By then, the shareholders had invested more than two million euros in the startup, the post says. The startup was valued at five million euros in 2021; Most recently, the founder went into fundraising with a valuation of nine million euros. Gleam CEO Eibl is open to all suggestions.
What was particularly surprising: As the founder and managing director of his company, he only paid himself a salary totaling 50,000 euros in the ten years of his company’s existence. If that’s true, that would correspond to an average monthly salary of less than 420 euros.
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Cynical and lecturing comments on Linkedin
The post has garnered a lot of attention on Linkedin, receiving 500 reactions and around 100 comments so far. While some commenters wished the founder luck in raising capital, others appear to have already written off the company and offer advice on how they could have run the company better. For example: “Wasn’t the design too complex and too expensive?” or “Have you ever thought about changing your marketing?” to “The business model has never made sense to me” or “Do you really want to destroy more investor money?”
The founder usually answers factually, but also hands out. Among other things, he replies, “Thank you for your helpful comments on how you would do things better if you set up a cargo bike company yourself.” can we do better? Should we put in a combustion engine?”
Gleam at the Austrian “Die Höhle der Löwen”
Gleam is not an unknown company in Austria. In 2021, the start-up was able to present itself to the Austrian television audience in the start-up show “2 minutes 2 million” – the counterpart to the German format “Die Höhle der Löwen”. The show scores there consistently good odds. During the show, Gleam was also able to win TV judge Alexander Schütz as an investor.
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