It is almost two years since Mobike co-founder Hu Weiwei put around 50 bicycles on the streets of Shanghai and drove away. Ofo had a similar beginning, spreading out shared bikes on Beijing’s university campuses. This is how China’s dockless bike rental economy was born—from moves that could easily be branded as crazy. Today, bikes […]
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Updated: Alibaba rumored to deepen involvement in bike-rentals with upcoming $1 bln Hellobike investment round
Updated 23 Jan 2017: TechNode Chinese has reached out to Hellobike, Fosun Capital and Hellobike’s early-stage investor GGV, but neither has confirmed the news. Chinese bike rental firm Hellobike (哈罗单车) is going to complete $1 billion worth of round from Ant Financial (an affiliate company of Alibaba Group), Fosun Capital, and some other existing investors, people familiar […]
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Mobike partners with AT&T and Qualcomm—for what could be single global model
Mobike plans to partner with AT&T and Qualcomm as it rolls out its smart bike rental service across the US. The partnerships with the US companies will help it keep in line with the authorities there and the move suggests the bike company could be developing a single model for global rollout. Mobike has released […]
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Mobike accelerates European expansion with second stop in Italy
Shortly after launching in UK last month, Chinese bike-sharing giant Mobike announced Tuesday that it’s pedaling its way to a second stop in Europe—Italy—in an extended competition with its arch-rival ofo for the global market. The firm said it would first launch several hundreds of Mobikes in Florence across selected high-demand areas with a promotion rate […]
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Ofo and Mobike aren’t doing so well in Singapore
China’s fast-expanding bike-sharing startups ofo and Mobike both expanded to Singapore earlier this year, but it turns out that the local bike rental operator oBike is winning the local game. Ofo officially launched its service in Singapore this February and saw a surge in the number of users, making it the fifth most downloaded app […]
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4 take aways from 34 new Chinese unicorns in 2017: IT Juzi report
A “unicorn” refers to those companies less than 10 years old and valued at $1 billion or more. There were 34 Chinese new unicorn companies in 2017 that match these conditions, according to a new report released by Chinese startup database IT Juzi (IT桔子). In the first half of 2017, rental economy startups gained prominence […]
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2017 Q3 bike rental market analysis from Cheetah lab: Getting ready for winter
Statistics from the Cheetah big data shows that ofo and Mobike still occupy the majority of the bicycle rental market in the third quarter of 2017, Chinese media Lanjing TMT is reporting. As the weather turns colder, bike-sharing apps may witness usage decline compared to the second or third quarter as many people do not ride […]
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Mobike’s data strategy emerges on Baidu Maps
Mobike’s recently-announced data sharing strategy has just made a prominent appearance: Mobike – and Ofo – bikes are now visible and unlockable via the Baidu Maps app. The latest update of the app allows users to log in with their mobile numbers to hire bikes from the two main hire companies. The latest version of […]
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Ofo in talks to raise new financing of more than $1 billion
Chinese bike rental company ofo is in talks to raise new financing of more than $1 billion, Reuters is reporting. Ofo’s co-founder Yang Pinjie, now based in the Moscow, told Reuters that the amount of financing may exceed $1 billion, but refused to disclose that what banks were involved in the talks. September 22nd was World […]
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China’s bike rental consolidation begins with reported Mobike acquisition of Unibike
Tencent Tech (in Chinese) is reporting that China’s top bike rental startup Mobike has recently completed the acquisition of smaller player Unibike, citing people familiar with the matter. The source didn’t specify the sum for this acquisition but pointed out that Mobike is also an investor in their RMB 100 million (around US$ 14.6 million) Series A. “The […]
