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galvanising motorcycle company Cake take for talks with Harley - Davidson and other automakers in 2023 as it contend to persist alive , founder and CEO Stefan Ytterborn tell TechCrunch in an interview Tuesday .
The dialogue , which have not been previously report , ultimately did not pan off out for the Swedish startup , which slide into bankruptcylast workweek . Still , Ytterborn state he skip to find a way to make it through the bankruptcy process and come out with a spouse on the other side .
“ I ’ve had 40 merging in the past three day , ” Ytterborn said , adding that most have been with two - wheeler brand . They ’re “ interested in finding out if there ’s a chance for us to do something ” together , he read .
Cake kick upstairs $ 14 million in its Series A round in 2019 , composed of mostly venture funding , with the goal of building high - design electric bike and moped at shell . It conform to that with a$60 million Series B roundin 2021 led by Swedish pension monetary fund AMF , giving the startup some institutional backing . Ytterborn say his society begin seek to provoke a Series C as early as August 2022 and that he expected to be able to close with a standardised commixture of mental home and a few VCs .
But by the end of that year , VCswere tear back in a big way , and closing a Series C suddenly count a pile hard . “ We had rafts of pastime , but no one stepped forward , ” Ytterborn said . “ The whole space just collapse . ”
Cake shifted its focussing off from European investors and toward those based in North America in late 2022 and early 2023 , fit in to Ytterborn . Any head the company made ended in spring 2023 with the Silicon Valley Bank crisis , which spook anyone who register interest group , he said .
Cake hired Deutsche Bank and investing bank Numis ( which Deutsche Bank later acquired ) and started toss carmaker , including Harley - Davidson . Ytterborn say he get hold most of them to be “ super receptive , ” and while he would n’t go into detail about who else Cake flip , he say the troupe was looking at a chain of options , include investments and strategic partnership .
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team up with a carmaker might have made the most sense , especially given the increasing restrictions in urban center kernel across Europe , Ytterborn call back . “ They ’re well aware that if they do n’t expand their portfolio , [ and get ] in something that would be really physically present within the urban landscape , they ’re go to overleap out on that last - nautical mile reality , ” he said .
Cake was n’t able to bring a deal to fruition and instead had to concentre on “ extending runway , ” Ytterborn say , which include being “ smooch fed ” by the lead investor of the Series B turn , the Swedish pension investment company . That track ran out last week , when Ytterborn said Cake came to the “ horrify realness ” of having to file for failure .
The bankruptcy outgrowth in Sweden is standardized to how it lick in the United States ; a regent has been appoint to make certain that Cake ’s creditors are made as whole as possible .
But , Ytterborn said , “ there ’s no reason to essay and destruct ” the business . “ Our aim from a management perspective is to find a collaborator who ’s willing to invest in [ the ] company and management , for us to restructure and continue the journeying going forward . ”
With interest rate still high , and micromobility companies going out of business seemingly every month , that could be a tall chore . But while it may have been easier to raise money at the beginning of Cake ’s life , Ytterborn did n’t sound particularly fond of that environment in hindsight .
“ I think that 10 geezerhood from now , we ’ll be looking back at the old age between 2017 and 2022 with a moment of a laugh , looking at how awful it turned out , ” he said . “ Right now , I imagine that we ’re fighting our asses off trying to find a mode forward . ”
