Zag Daily is thrilled to announce that we have partnered with European investment bank Bryan Garnier to run an exclusive event in Mayfair, London on 18 April.
Bryan Garnier is one of the world’s leading independent investment banks for European technology, healthcare and energy transition companies with a dedicated team of 20+ mobility specialists among the 150+ investment bankers. It provides strategic advice on private and public growth financing strategies, from equity and debt solutions, to mergers and acquisitions.
The event will address one central question – how to crack profitability in new mobility.
While it could be considered natural for some new mobility companies to fail during the current consolidatory ‘right-sizing’ phase, the fact that a number of big players have either been bailed out at the last minute, or filed for bankruptcy over the last year cannot be ignored. VanMoof, CAKE, Superpedestrian, Cityscoot and Bird – one of the fastest startups to reach a $1 billion valuation – have all run into serious financial difficulties, to name a few.
“Profitability is the topic that every investor is talking about,” said Florent Roulet, Partner and Head of Mobility at Bryan Garnier.
“Every time I have a call with an investor, they say, ‘oh mobility, we haven’t seen many profitable businesses. Blah, blah, blah. I just want to squash this narrative as there are actually some brilliant business models – look at Beryl or Vapaus. For us at Bryan Garnier, this is about doubling down on advising growth mobility companies with the models that work.”
Three profitability threads
The event’s theme will be broken down into three threads for a panel of entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts to tackle.
First up is what does being profitable actually mean? What metrics are investors really looking for? And what is deemed an attractive business model? Participants will hear first-hand from the mobility companies doing it right.
In the second thread, given all the focus to date on the status of mobility companies earnings, we’ve decided to flip the spotlight back on investor/VC profitability. How are they faring? Are VCs still eyeing big unicorn bets or have they taken a more sensible route raising horses?
The final area of discussion is why has hardware become such a ‘Hard Sell’ to investors? The knock-on effect has seen mobility startups hiding behind vague business models or masking themselves as software businesses.
The event will run from 18:00 – 22:00 on 18 April and will feature a Keynote and expert panel, followed by networking and canapes.
Zag Daily will curate the content before, during and after the event.
“All our clients and industry contacts are readers and/or contributors to Zag,” said Florent. “We share the same mindset, the same network across Europe, and we are both driven by championing innovation and disruption in the sustainable mobility space.”
