High jump Helbiz: it is the first micro mobility company to go public on Nasdaq. It all began in 2016 when Salvatore Palella, born in 1987, understands that the shared car is the future. The calculation is easy: for 96%, on average, owned cars are not used. They stand still.
So after a brief interlude of a car-sharing service, he realizes that with micromobility – by cutting costs and providing a greener service – his company can take flight. Thus he launched the sharing electric scooter which, still today, is the main activity of Helbiz. By the way, the acronym comes from Hel: Help and Biz: business. Business Support. Nomen omen.
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His company is growing at an impressive rate: three years ago it invoiced 8 thousand euros in our country, now it is the first Italian rental operator and among the top three in the USA. And now the consecration with the landing on the stock exchange, on Nasdaq.
The red thread that binds all this incredible story is innovation, technology and fashion: the electric scooter, in sharing, is an apparently simple but very complicated vehicle to manage. And there is also a glamorous component: the ecological vehicle par excellence, created to travel the “first or last mile” of a city trip, today people like it. Few numbers to understand the discourse: in Italy who uses these little two wheels for the first time then reuse it at least 3 times in the next 5 days.
Meanwhile, Helbiz continues to innovate. Protagonist of a recent merger with GreenVision Acquisition Corp. and the acquisition of MiMoto Smart mobility, it continues its growth in the micro mobility sector and continues its expansion path with the creation of a new business line dedicated to food delivery: Helbiz Kitchen, a service that will take care of its customers entirely throughout the production chain.
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We were talking earlier about the complexities of managing the rental service. To address this problem, the high tech HQ was inaugurated in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2019, a sign of the great importance given to the technological development of the brand. Here one part of the team takes care of the user app and everything user oriented, another part is dedicated to R&D and develops completely new functions, products and trends for micro-mobility, while the development team is involved on various hardware and software solutions. Also in 2019, the first Helbiz electric scooter arrives in Miami, followed by Arlington, Alexandria and Washington DC.
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2020 marks the turning point for Helbiz: the company signs, as we said, the acquisition of MiMoto and the Helbiz integrated ecosystem is born, which offers three different types of vehicles to its users and the possibility of choosing the ideal vehicle. depending on the need to move. In the USA the first electric bike arrives in Washington DC while in Italy the company obtains numerous licenses in the main cities, conquering the Adriatic coast with Bari and breaking latest news, then passing through Cesena, Ravenna and Parma without forgetting the goals of Rome, Naples, Latina, Verona, Turin and Pisa, a roadmap that allows it to become the first player and leader of micro mobility on the national territory with a current share of 26%.
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Today the American company reaches the threshold of over 2.7 million users and with the listing on the Nasdaq is determined to expand its business.It is no coincidence that a few months ago the birth of the company Helbiz Media was announced, whose activities they add value to the group as a support of its core business, shared micro mobility. The birth of the new business unit is part of the strategic expansion plan: Helbiz Media has acquired for Italy the OTT rights of the Serie B Championship for the next 3: 20 Clubs, more than 390 games between regular season, playout and playoff, over 2.2 million fans. The content offering service is called Helbiz Live and an OTT service, usable through smartphones, tablets, PCs, smart TVs.
Not only that: also in June 2021 a collaboration with Pininfarina and MT Distribution, a company of the Italian Motor Valley, was born. Helbiz thus becomes the first micro mobility sharing company to start development in Italy, moreover with a prestigious collaboration, which provides for the development by Pininfarina of a new range of electric micro mobility vehicles with a coordinated and customizable design; MT Distribution deals with the engineering of Helbiz media. In a first phase, the focus is on scooters used for sharing, then those intended for consumer sales, marking an expansion of the business that will integrate sharing with direct sales. The future is outlined.
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