Deal focus: Neuron finds clear roads down under

Prior to approving a local launch of Neuron Mobility's e-scooter rental service, Brisbane City Council wanted assurances about rider safety. What could be done to ensure riders wore helmets and didn't lose or abandon them? Neuron duly designed an app-controlled helmet lock, said to be a world first.

The Singapore-headquartered start-up – which recently received a $12 million top-up from Square Peg Capital and GSR Ventures, taking its Series A to $30.5 million – is full of ideas. Its e-scooters come with interchangeable batteries to reduce recharging costs, fall detection capabilities, and voice guidance. According to Zachary Wang (pictured, left, with co-founder Harry Yu), Neuron's CEO, these functions are as much about serving the cities in which the company operates as they are enhancing user experience.

"We've spent time and resources innovating our e-scooters and the way we operate them so we can run a sustainable business that is sensitive to each market's regulatory landscape," he says. "We also work hand-in-hand with councils using geofencing to control how fast and where e-scooters can be ridden and parked. In each city we work with the councils to designate low-speed zones, no-go zones, no-parking zones. It's truly a bespoke approach."

What Neuron wants in return is an environment in which it can operate with a degree of certainty. The four-year-old company previously had operations in Southeast Asia beyond Singapore, but Australia and New Zealand have emerged as its primary focus in the past 12 months.

Since launching in the two markets in June 2019, nearly two million trips – amounting to 4 million kilometers – have been completed by 400,000 riders on 4,000 e-scooters. The service is available in nine locations, including leading urban centers like Auckland, Brisbane, and Adelaide. Users pay A$1 or NZ$1 to access an e-scooter and then A$0.38/NZ$0.38 for each minute the ride lasts. Flat-rate three-day, weekly and monthly passes are also available that allow up to 90 minutes use per day.

Australia and New Zealand appeal for several reasons. They are well regulated, have infrastructure that supports micro-mobility, and city councils are keen on individual transport modes like e-scooters as a complement to existing public transport systems. There is also a willingness to incorporate Neuron's data – on a user anonymous basis – into overall transport planning.

COVID-19 introduced another dimension, but the company had to move quickly to keep services running while others halted operations, Neuron had sanitization teams working around the clock with hospital-grade disinfectant to keep e-scooters clean, introduced requirements on personal sanitization and the use of protective equipment, and issued free passes to public health workers.

"Fast forward a few months and cities are rethinking their transport systems. Many are very open to the possibility of micro-mobility, particularly rental e-scooters as they present an individual transport option that takes pressure off public transport and allows people to continue social distancing," says Wang. "We've been experiencing tremendous growth in Australia and New Zealand and the pandemic has made us fast track our plans."

These plans include going global. In addition to entering at least five new cities in Australia and New Zealand in the next 12 months, the first pilot project in the UK begins later this month.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Early-stage
• Australasia
• Technology
• Singapore
• Australia
• Transportation
• GSR Ventures
• Square Peg Capital