A new global mobility player called Today has been formed by merging six brands in the micromobility industry.
Frog, Leap, Ottr, Element, MIXTE and White Fox will now all operate under the flagship umbrella of Today.
They are wholly owned by venture capitalist fund EFO Ventures, which invested £2.5m to combine the hardware and mobility–as-a-service (MaaS) companies.
Focused on Europe and North America, Today is looking to seize the opportunity in the new mobility industry as a provider covering the “entire value chain” of purpose-built hardware and MaaS for its customers.
Its commercial fleet consists of 8,000 vehicles made up of e-scooters, e-bikes, e-cargo bikes and e-mopeds.
They are available for shared mobility operators, delivery companies, universities and consumer brands wanting white label solutions.
On the MaaS side, Today is offering 1,500 vehicles in Nottingham (England) and Lisbon (Portugal), with plans to expand to Dublin later on this year.
Third-party liability insurance, a home charger, maintenance and home delivery and collection is all bundled into a monthly fee.
“We have invested directly in cutting edge products and technology to develop two key verticals – hardware and MaaS – to service a broad global customer base, while underpinning all verticals with profitable business models from the start,” Today’s Co-Founder Sean Flood told Zag Daily.
By covering both verticals and different segments of the new mobility market, Today aims to continue driving profitability.
“With profitability as our focus, a key part of our investment thesis is about being able to cover the entire value chain so seasonality in shared mobility doesn’t affect us because we are not dependent on one source of revenue,” he explained.
Leadership team
Flood is a seasoned entrepreneur with an extensive background in taking businesses from concept to scale. As Founder and CEO of Gotcha Mobility, Flood led the company to become one of the top five mobility companies in the US before selling it in 2019.
Joining him is Co-Founder David Touwsma who specialises in early-stage company development and has a wealth of finance knowledge, including assembling investors to fund over $50m of capital.
Rounding it off is Brett Frazee who has been appointed Chief Revenue Officer. With extensive knowledge of transportation, finance, operations, and mobility, Frazee spent 15+ years as a senior executive at Enterprise Holdings, and most notably with their affiliate, Enterprise Fleet Management.
Together they have more than 17 years experience in the new mobility industry.
Picking apart the Today brand
Flood said that when naming the company, they wanted to draw attention to how they could positively affect how people move not just in the future, but Today.
“Having been in the new mobility industry for 17+ years, we have found that there’s always this forward thinking narrative that streets will be more liveable, products will be more electric, but in doing so, we’re missing what is already happening now. By taking a more active role, our aim is to solve today’s challenges, transform the space and pull people along. This is what the brand represents.”
They also “very intentionally” do not call the company Today Mobility.
“That’s because we define this sector as MobiTech – an ecosystem encompassing all the mobility modes with all the tech wrapped around it.”
Seed round & future mergers
Today is just kicking off a seed round investment with the aim to raise $4.5m.
“The response has been great with large interest from European investors,” said Flood.
This money will be used to double its subscription assets, boost the firm’s hardware sales by a factor of three and increase the size of the team to support the expansion.
Looking ahead, the team is already in discussions about bringing more companies under the Today brand.
“The goal here is to only take on profitable companies. We are actively working through the M&A process with a few businesses and believe we will be a great partner for regional mobility players as we power up this new era of travel.”
