Irish electric bicycle company raises €30,000 for expansion

Electric bicycle tourism specialist, sales and distributor, Electric Escapes, has raised €30,000 for expansion of its business.

The company based in Westport, Co Mayo, used the crowd-loan website Linked Finance and fully funded the loan in 4 hours and 27 minutes.

Paul Harmon, owner of Electric Escapes and LoveMyBike.ie, said: “It was an easy decision to return to the Linked Finance platform to raise the funds we needed to increase our stock levels… the process suited our business so well, we did it twice.”

Electric Escapes started business with cycling tours using electric bikes along the Wild Atlantic Way, but, according to Harmon, many of his customers were purchasing more bikes directly from him than they were from bike shops and that lead him to become the sole distributor of German-built Kalkhoff bicycles in Ireland and the established of LoveMyBike.ie as an offshoot from Electric Escapes.

Harmon said electric bicycles are expensive so a ‘try before you buy’ model, where customers could familiarise themselves with the bikes on an Electric Escapes tour before purchasing was very successful.

LoveMyBike has also recently won the Irish contract for Movelo, a bicycle leasing system for hotels and other businesses.

The electric bicycles leasing model allows new-to-market electric mountain bikes to be leased, making it easier for cycling tourism without a large capital outlay. LoveMyBike has already signed up Waterford Greenway Bike Hire and the Dingle Electric Bike Experience.


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