Italian e-mobility scaleup Blubrake lands €5.2 million to expand its innovative safety tech for e-bikes
Italian e-mobility scaleup Blubrake, known for its unique ABS (anti-lock braking system) tech, announces a €5.2 million Series A round, bringing its total funding to over €10 million. This round is a strong step toward further expansion of the company, which will involve expanding its range of innovative safety solutions for e-mobility vehicles based on the most advanced standards in electronic engineering.
The funding round was led by e-Novia, the deeptech ‘Entreprises Factory’ within which Blubrake was founded and completed its acceleration process, together with other investors including Progress Tech Transfer, a venture capital firm specialised in new technologies for sustainability, and a collection of private investors, including: Andrea Perin (Managing Director at Banca Finint), and Michele Scannavini (President at Italian Trade Agency and at e-Novia).
Blubrake was founded in late 2015 by Fabio Todeschini, together with e-Novia and a group of professors and researchers from Politecnico di Milano. Focused on electronic assistance for braking, it developed several award-winning solutions and is now having its international market recognition thanks to the first and unique ABS for e-bikes that can be fully integrated in the bike frame (which is suitable for any segment of e-bikes and e-cargo bikes).
ABS is considered to be an upcoming revolution in the e-bike market, an industry that is experiencing double-digit growth since years, and that is seen as one of the pillars of the post-pandemic mobility transformation. Blubrake’s solution has been chosen by some of the largest bike manufacturers in the world, including Crescent, Bulls and others.
Blubrake is also set to expand its products range with more mechatronic e-mobility solutions, aiming for a worldwide leadership in safety for e-mobility components. “This funding round will allow Blubrake to fast-track the investments in our industrial and commercial structures in order to keep expanding our footprint in the market and to bring new solutions to it”, commented Fabio Todeschini, Blubrake’s General Manager. “We have discussions underway with most of the top e-bike manufacturers and we target a market that has a turnover of more than 20 billion dollars. We have demonstrated to be able to develop and industrialize some best-in-class tech solutions chosen by some of the world leading bike manufacturers, and we are confident to replicate this success with more customers and more products”.
Interestingly, this round represents one of the largest fundraisings closed within the Italian deeptech ecosystem. Vincenzo Russi, CEO at e-Novia and lead investor of this round, comments, “This funding round is a demonstration of Blubrake’s value growth and of the brilliant path ahead that is now clearly outlined. The amount of this fundraising, which is fully underwritten by international investors, demonstrates the quality of its team, the value of its product and the strength of its industrial and product strategy. Blubrake is one of the best examples of e-Novia’s portfolio quality and proves the ability of our Enterprise Factory model to transform research projects and inventions into actual businesses, with a solid ambition to be leader in their own markets. This makes us feel proud and privileged to have Progress Tech Transfer and other private investors in this round”.
Francesco De Michelis, from Progress Tech Transfer, added, “Our investment in Blubrake is fully consistent with our mission– to support projects with a strong technological dimension which aim to provide sustainable solutions in environmental, energetic, manufacturing, social and financial domains”.
