The Canadian private equity firm House of Lithium, one of the world’s largest investors in electric micro-mobility, has just announced the acquisition of the European mobility company, Reby. The buyer, which was already a large shareholder in the company, acquired the remaining part of the business. The transaction is priced at US$100M million and it will elevate the company's founder, Pep Gómez, with the rest of the management team, to continue managing and expanding Reby.
The Canadian private equity firm House of Lithium, one of the world’s largest investors in electric micro-mobility, has just announced the acquisition of the European mobility company, Reby. The buyer, which was already a large shareholder in the company, acquired the remaining part of the business. The transaction is priced at US$100M million and it will elevate the company's founder, Pep Gómez, with the rest of the management team, to continue managing and expanding Reby.
"We have been impressed with the performance of Reby and its team since our initial investment two years ago. Given our current strategy, it was an easy decision for us to pursue this transaction. Combining Reby's leading IoT technology and proven ridesharing business model with House of Lithium's manufacturing, distribution, e-commerce and retail assets, will contribute to creating an endto-end mobility platform to maximize top-line opportunities and bottom-line results. The acquisition of Reby's industry-leading leadership team, consumer experience and IoT platform will also strengthen our mobility-focused R&D and add to our overall data strategy". Kevin Taylor, Chairman of House of Lithium.
Reby is one of the few players in the micro-mobility market that has proven to build a profitable business model. Today, Reby is the Southern Europe leader in the field, with over 18 agreements with public administrations. The company was founded by four entrepreneurs (Pep Gómez, Kiran Thomas, Cristina Castillo, and Guillem Pagès) in 2018 as a micromobility operator, winning the first public tender in Europe for micromobility in the city of Zaragoza (Spain). In 2021, despite the pandemic, the company closed the year with approximately US$15M of revenue with approximately US$3M EBITDA.
"The financial capacity and capital markets expertise of the House of Lithium team makes this a great partnership with the extra power that Reby needs to continue its growth. I think the two companies will complement each other very well. Unlike most of the competitors, the focus will be on profitability as the most important metric. The different businesses in which it holds a majority position generate more than US$80M in healthy, annualized revenue, with a clear focus on exponential growth. The time for EV companies burning money with artificial growth is over, giving us a massive opportunity to win in an untapped market focusing on infrastructure regulation and R&D development in security and public space occupation, which is imperative for cities". Pep Gomez, Founder and Chairman of Reby.
Reby is the second venture for Gomez, who at 19 years old was the sole founder of Fever, a $1.2bn unicorn, the global leader in the digitization of the Experience Economy, helping over 50 million people every month to discover the best experiences in their cities, backed by Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners and Rakuten, among others.
The company has raised a total of US$17.9M from international well-known investors, a modest amount in the EV market. Some of the venture capital firms behind Reby are EXOR (Ferrari, Stellantis, Neuralink), 14W Ventures (Wallapop, Fever, Lyft), Neo Fund (Dropbox, Facebook, Airbnb), Fuel Capital (Convoy), Hard Yaka (Twitter, Coinbase, Square), Day One Ventures (Truebill, DuckDuckGo) and some angels like Simon Rothman (Founder of eBay Motors and board member to Tesla and Lyft), Marcelo Gigliani (APAX Digital) or Hugo Arevalo (Jobandtalent)
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