Electric moped startup Revel raises $27.6 million as it eyes new markets

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Electric moped startup Revel raises $27.6 million as it eyes new markets

20 months and 1,400 scooters

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In less than two years, Revel has gone from an idea to a shared electric vehicle startup with more than 1,400 mopeds across Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn and Queens, New York.
CEO and co-founder Frank Reig said this growth will extend to its fleet of scooters within the cities it currently operates as well as expand into new markets.
Revel is targeting about 10 cities by mid-2020, Reig added.
How that growth occurs, and who is behind its operations, is what Reig believes differentiates Revel from other shared electric vehicle providers such as scooter startups that have had a record of deploying in cities before getting approval from local authorities.
Many startups in the shared industry, including Revel, talk up their focus on safety and desire to be responsible partners with cities.
“These mopeds are motor vehicles,” Reig noted.
Revel caps the speed of its mopeds to 30 miles per hour.
Revel only has full-time employees, said Reig, adding that it’s a decision he intends to stick with even as his company grows.
“We don’t use gig economy in anything we do and I see a ton of value in that,” Reig said.
Revel’s shared mopeds have a three-year asset life, Reig said, based on their in-house estimates.
Otherwise, the mopeds aren’t loaded into vans by gig economy workers who make money by charging them up — a common practice with the small stand-up scooters that have inundated cities like San Diego and San Francisco.
The idea for Revel was born out of Reig’s travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he witnessed locals on every form of two-wheeled vehicle.
“I came back to New York, started studying the market more and saw all these electric moped operators had been popping up in Europe over the last few years and just realized that if I don’t do it, somebody else will.”
In May, after a nine-month pilot, Revel pulled the original mopeds it used in its limited pilot and replaced them with 1,000 new models built for two riders and equipped with kickstands for parking

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