Because 2021 was not a year of rest, here is a retrospective that will make you smile. Indeed, the year 2021 was a flourishing one for the Donkey squad: more and more cities converted to bike-sharing systems, product evolutions, new partnerships, and fundraising. It’s time to take stock before attacking even harder this year!
???? The IPO: 110 million DKK raised last spring
For the first time in its history, Donkey Republic raised 110 million DKK in funding and became a listed company on Nasdaq First North. This step confirms our ambition to become the best partner for more sustainable cities and to follow our mission: to offer the citizens more convenience and healthy options, simplify their daily life as riders and empower our growing community around Europe in making sustainable choices each day.
This development also led to exponential demands for bike sharing solutions. Governments and municipalities have begun to define clear objectives to get people out of private vehicles and onto a combination of public transportation and micromobility like Donkey Republic’s bike share.
Do you want to take part in the journey? Show your support by buying stocks!
???? The extension of our fleet and cities
Thanks to the work of our passionate team, Donkey Republic opened more than 30 new operations in 8 countries, including Straubing in Germany, a campus system for Amazon in the UK, Varberg in Sweden, Brest in France, Fanø in Denmark and Dordrecht in the Netherlands. Our iconic orange bikes now bring even more colors to all these cities, for the enjoyment of locals and tourists alike. In Geneva for instance, we celebrated our one year anniversary last August with more than 100.000 rentals made! In one year, we have talked to over 220 bike enthusiasts to implement bike share systems in their cities!
Not to end it there, we are expecting to launch dozens of cities this year, from Finland to Southern Europe and even beyond! We are already delighted to announce the launch of the regional e-bike share system in Antwerp, a pilot in Cairo and a bike share system in Turku! In a nutshell, the Donkey fleet now reaches approximately 14,000 bikes in +70 cities in 14 countries.
To achieve our goals, we will grow the size of our teams in 2022, particularly in sales, marketing, product and R&D.
See our open positions here.
???? Our Gen3, a new – and safer – generation of bikes
At Donkey we pride ourselves on our internal focus of learning development. We use what is widely known as the growth cycle when it comes to experiential learning. This allows us to constantly develop our product for all riders.
By listening to our users through direct feedback, data and more, we established different learnings that we then put into place to elaborate our 3rd generation of bike and 2nd generation of e-bikes. This new e-system provides a longer range and features a mid drive motor that provides a more comfortable ride. We’ve also adapted our new iconic handlebar design from the pedal bike generation 3 into the new ebike.
Our latest models, designed in Denmark, are even sturdier, more robust and easier to maintain. This has reduced the total cost of maintenance by 30%.
But most of all, they are more reliable, more comfortable and more secure for our riders, which perfectly fits our priority: safety for our riders. The more secure the bikes are, the greater the chances of riding them.
✴A service that is constantly evolving to meet your needs
A more customized bike-sharing system: that could be our red line for 2021. In order to meet our ambition by offering the best alternative to cars in urban areas, our product team has worked harder than ever to deliver new features.
- Day Deals: this new plan makes it very attractive for our riders to explore the cities for longer periods and not just for A to B trips. This radically transformed how our riders were using our bikes and made them take much longer trips. It has changed the average rental duration by more than 100% and improved YOY revenue by 4,4%. Looking to spend a day, a weekend or a week in a Donkey City? Our new Day Deals give you the best price for 1, 2, 3 or 7 day rentals.
- Ride History: our riders can see their past journeys, fetch invoices and reach support easier in-app.
- In-app Surveys: our team can create surveys for specific vehicles, so we can measure performance of specific hardware (solid bike tires f.x.)
- Wallet Auto Top-up: this features is the key to make sure a rider never runs out of funds on his/her wallet, so it gets filled whenever it runs out.
These are the main highlights of last year, and we can already guarantee you that much more features, both for our riders, shepherds and Donkey team will be released in the coming months! Stay tuned!
Want to help us improve our service or product? Tell us in the comments what kind of features you would like to see in 2022.
???? The 1st free bike program in Europe, in collaboration with Lyon Métropole
A historical deal has been made between Donkey Republic and the Metropole of Lyon. They are purchasing 10.000 refurbished Donkey Republic bikes for their new project “Free Vélo’v,” these bikes will be lent for free to young students and young people in integration in Lyon.
The refurbishment of the bikes will be part of a reintegration program. Here different people seeking to get back into the job market or just reintegrate into society can learn different work and social skills to help them in their future. The aim is to help support and supervise their (re)integration into society.
It’s the first time in Europe that such a big-scale operation for refurbished bikes from a bike-sharing company is launched and it’s done through local partnerships in the city of Lyon.
???? A successful marketing campaign in Copenhagen and Rotterdam
Sometimes, you have to do small things to wait and see about potential results. Well… that’s not exactly how we think in terms of communication. Of course, we do love to test and learn on some specific projects, especially when it comes to promoting new features such as the auto top-up wallet.
But this summer, we felt that in order to conquer some of our key cities, our home base, Copenhagen and the vibrant Rotterdam in the Netherlands, we needed to do even more. If you live in these locations or had the chance to visit them, you probably noticed the impactful posters in town with the motto #Everyridecounts. That was us! Creative, fun and friendly: that sums up our DNA at work and this is the way we want to convert people to biking!
Together with the outdoor advertising, we of course also did lots of digital marketing to raise awareness in the markets and to get new riders on board. It looks like our strategy makes sense, since our brand gained +40 % lift in brand awareness based on outdoor presence within only 2 weeks and a growth of new riders by +45 % observed the month after the campaign.
You haven’t been lucky enough to see our campaign? Here is a snapshot:
???? Thank you for your support!
Today, we would also like to say a heartfelt thank you to all who have actively supported and helped shape Donkey Republic last year. In 2021, we recorded a record number of rides. Many of you shared your experiences and know-how on a wide variety of subjects.
The future of our international partnerships is largely determined by the participation of our partners, riders and advisers, so we hope to welcome many new and familiar faces to our events, working and steering groups in the coming year.
Thank you for joining us in 2021 to promote sustainability in urban mobility in your city, and let’s continue to grow together in 2022! ????
