Aachen — Seed Fonds III für die Region Aachen und Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co KG, part of the S‑UBG Group, is inves­t­ing in the mobi­lity plat­form MOQO toge­ther with DSA Invest II GmbH. The MOQO brand stands for a soft­ware-as-a-service offe­ring opera­ted by Digi­tal Mobi­lity Solu­ti­ons GmbH. It provi­des small and locally active provi­ders of carsha­ring, bikesha­ring and other mobi­lity concepts with the infra­struc­ture they need to estab­lish their own mobi­lity service within four weeks. MOQO provi­des the neces­sary tech­no­lo­gies for this and also offers a compre­hen­sive service, inclu­ding consul­ting and manage­ment of the conver­sion and main­ten­ance of the vehicles.

The manage­ment team, consis­ting of Dr. Michael Minis (CEO) and Markus Harm­sen (CTO), was alre­ady co-foun­ders of tamyca, a plat­form for private car sharing. Toge­ther with their team and the venture capi­tal fund Kizoo Tech­no­logy Capi­tal, they built the plat­form and successfully sold it in 2017. The share­hol­ders will use the proceeds to launch the new busi­ness model of the B2B mobi­lity plat­form MOQO (initi­ally Fleetbutler).

MOQO shared mobi­lity solu­tion meets market need
The main target markets are, on the one hand, car sharing for resi­den­tial comple­xes, repre­sen­ted by the app MOQO HOME, and, on the other hand, company vehicle fleets, repre­sen­ted by MOQO WORK. Howe­ver, dedi­ca­ted carsha­ring in various use cases as well as carsha­ring offers outside the MOQO app are also part of the port­fo­lio. With the MOQO brand, Digi­tal Mobi­lity Solu­ti­ons GmbH, as an infra­struc­ture provi­der, forms the inter­face between vehicle opera­tors and vehicle users. The app is the central commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel: Users can reserve and book vehic­les, as well as purchase and sell them digi­tally. Opera­tors can account for trips, manage vehic­les and check their condi­tion. Since the launch of its B2B service, MOQO has alre­ady acqui­red a large number of custo­mers, inclu­ding housing asso­cia­ti­ons, car dealer­ships and leasing companies.

“We offer our custo­mers the maxi­mum degree of auto­ma­tion of sharing proces­ses. This makes the solu­tion econo­mical even for small sharing provi­ders,” says Michael Minis.

High demand for alter­na­tive mobi­lity concepts
“MOQO meets a growing market need. Demand for alter­na­tive mobi­lity concepts is rising. With over two million active car-sharing users, Germany alre­ady occu­p­ies a leading posi­tion. As MOQO also empowers smal­ler provi­ders with the neces­sary infra­struc­ture to estab­lish a sharing service them­sel­ves, the solu­tion contri­bu­tes to the diver­si­fi­ca­tion of the car sharing market,” says Bern­hard Kugel, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the manage­ment company of the Seed Fonds Aachen and Mönchen­glad­bach. “With its focus on the target markets of the real estate indus­try, public utili­ties and company fleets, MOQO has found a promi­sing market niche,” says Björn Lang, the respon­si­ble invest­ment mana­ger of the Aachen and Mönchen­glad­bach seed fund.

Vision: Mobi­lity on Demand
In a consor­tium around the Aachen-based elec­tric vehicle manufacturer
e‑GO Mobile AG, the MOQO team is also invol­ved in the deve­lo­p­ment of the Urban Move plat­form, a custo­mer-centric service plat­form for highly auto­ma­ted, elec­tri­cally driven mini­bu­ses (“People­Mo­ver”). With their know­ledge of the intel­li­gent gene­ra­tion, evalua­tion, use and networ­king of data, the MOQO experts are to steer self-driving shut­tle buses on this plat­form. The MOQO experts are pursuing a vision: “I want my child­ren to expe­ri­ence mobi­lity in the same way that we now buy music on Spotify and movies on Netflix: Cars, bikes and scoo­ters should be just a click away,” says Michael Minis.

About Seed Fonds III Aachen and Mönchengladbach
The “Seed Fonds III für die Region Aachen und Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG” is one of eleven regio­nal start-up funds that NRW.BANK imple­ments with regio­nal invest­ment part­ners in North Rhine-West­pha­lia. Seed Fonds III Aachen provi­des young compa­nies in the start-up phase with the neces­sary equity capi­tal on a long-term basis. The fund can invest a maxi­mum of three million euros per company, and signi­fi­cantly more with co-inves­tors. The Seed Fonds II Aachen has been disbur­sed after about five years and a second follow-up fund — the Seed Fonds III Aachen and Mönchen­glad­bach — has been estab­lished from NRW.BANK’s seed fund initiative.