LatAm List – Latin America’s two biggest e-scooter startups recently announced a merger deal that will make them the third-largest scooter company in the world after Bird and Lime. The new company, renamed Grow Mobility, also raised US$150M of fresh capital to fund their expansion across Latin America.
In September 2018, Mexico’s Grin and Brazil’s Yellow (founded by ex-99 founders, Ariel Lambrecht and Eduardo Musa) raised the largest Seed and Series A rounds in the history of the region, respectively. Grow Mobility plans to establish operations in Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay, as well as consolidating their growth in Mexico and Brazil.
According to a report on The Information, the companies’ investors, GGV Capital and Monashees, pushed for the deal to increase bargaining power with suppliers and help fend off rivals like Didi Chuxing, which plans to expand into the Brazilian market with scooters in 2019. The two companies now have over 100,000 scooters and 35,000 bikes combined.
Grow is considering expansion into the southern US, but currently they are focused on leading the Latin American market. Grin recently partnered with delivery startup, Rappi, to allow customers to book their scooters through the app. Grow’s investors and executive team imagine the company could eventually become a platform for other kinds of purchases, much like China’s WeChat.
Ariel Lambrecht, co-founder of Yellow, added that Grow is now “a very big Latin American player, not only in mobility but in payments and delivery.”
Read more in The Information.
4 comments
Who led the round?