April 21, 2024

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SoCar, a mobility platform focusing on car-sharing and ride-sharing, is branching out into the micro-mobility segment, which offers small, human or electric powered transportation solutions, by investing in an e-bike sharing startup.

The company on March 6 said it has invested an undisclosed amount in Nine2One, the operator of e-bike sharing service Elecle, which began its beta service in November. Backed by SoCar’s mobility platform technology, Elecle plans to officially launch its service with 350 e-bikes and aims to expand to 2,000 units around the country by the year-end. 

 

Elecle’s e-bikes SoCar

“Providing various mobility options which allow users to move around without owning a car can reduce the number of cars and solve urban traffic issues,” Lee Jae-woong, SoCar founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We will create an innovation that will solve urban problems with startups that want to create mobility innovation,” he added.

SoCar’s announcement came one day after Kakao Mobility, owned by messenger service provider Kakao, said it is launching an e-bike sharing service on its platform Kakoa T. It said it will start out with 400 dockless e-bikes in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, and plans to increase the number to 1,000 this year.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)