An investment of €175,000 is being sought for a 17.9% equity stake in ‘app-tap and ride’ bike-sharing scheme operator BleeperBike.

The cited pre-money valuation is €803,000 for the Dublin startup.

“We have been busy bedding in a lean operating model for maintaining and balancing the distribution of our bikes,” says founder and CEO Hugh Cooney (pictured).

“This fundraising round will allow us accelerate our rate of growth in 2019 and to begin piloting long range electric bikes with a battery capable of covering 200kms on a single charge.”

The BleeperBike fleet currently expends to 550 standard push bikes in Dublin.

In Association with

A crowdfunding campaign has launched on Seedrs, the UK equity crowdfunding platform, to raise capital for the electric bikes that the company plans to roll out across Dublin next Spring.

Cooney lived in China between 2005 and 2010, working for PWC. Following his accountancy exams, he worked with KPMG from 2014 to 2017.

On a visit back to China, he saw a station-less bike scheme in operation. A regular user of DublinBikes, Cooney reckoned that a simplified model might be an improvement on the existing station-based version.

With BleeperBike, bikes are parked at the traditional bike stands other cyclists use. DublinBikes, the official municipal bike rental scheme, uses customised parking docks.

Cooney sourced his bikes from a Chinese manufacturer and his venture was awarded a licence by Dublin City Council in May 2018.

BleeperBikes are rented using an app and users have a typical journey time of 15 minutes. Available bikes are displayed on Google Maps in the app, and the subscriber scans a code on the lock to open it.

Cooney’s overhead includes ‘bike wardens’ who perform bike maintenance and move the bikes around.