Zeus Scooters has topped up its equity funding with €1.5m of new investment from twenty individual investors.

Zeus Scooters was established by Damian Young who formerly ran G4S in Ireland. In 2020 he launched Zeus into the German market, starting in Heidelberg.

Young’s strategy is to concentrate on scooter rentals in towns and cities that initially might be under the radar of larger players.

Zeus has now been rolled out to 20 urban centres in Germany, including Bamberg, Heilbronn, Konstanz, Neckarsulm, Wiesloch, Würzburg, Kempten and Ludwigsburg.

Young (pictured) initially funded his venture with Ulster Bank loan funding underwritten by an 80% SBCI guarantee.

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For the electric scooters, Young found a manufacturer in China, while the Zeus app was developed by Wunder Mobility in Hamburg, which bills itself as the largest and fastest growing mobility technology company in Europe.

In 2021, Zeus was awarded grant funding of €238,000 by Germany’s Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, for investment in innovation.

Operating company Eco Urban Scooters Ltd booked a net loss of €400,000 in 2021, bringing accumulated start-up loses to €770,000.

The company’s annual filing discloses total equity investment of €2.7m as of December  2021, and year-end balance sheet cash was €890,000.

Debtors doubled through 2021 to €2.1m. These are largely amounts owed by group undertakings.

Total liabilities at the end of 2021 amounted to €1.3m. Loan funding sourced from Colm Menton’s Moratalla Ltd amounted to €820,000 at the end of 2021.

The interest rate on the loan is 8% to 10%, and capital repayments commence in September 2022.

In the recent €1.5m funding round, TMA Investments, owned by Tony and Mary-Anne McCormack, invested €400,000; Fergal Broder’s Adstock Property Holdings invested €200,000; and Brendan Foley and Grey Hayden each invested €100,000.

Taxpayers are also on board with a €350,000 redeemable shares investment from Enterprise Ireland, effected in April 2022.