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VanMoof, the Most Funded E-bike Company in the World, Declared Bankrupt (theverge.com) 89

Posted by msmash from the tyre-punctured dept.
VanMoof -- the independent e-bike maker that once bragged about being the "most funded e-bike company in the world" -- has been declared bankrupt in the Netherlands. The company had entered into a so-called "suspension of payment" proceeding with court-assigned administrators just last week. From a report: According to a statement released by VanMoof, the court of Amsterdam withdrew the suspension of payment proceeding of the Dutch legal entities VanMoof Global Holding BV, VanMoof BV and VanMoof Global Support BV, and declared each entity bankrupt. VanMoof legal entities outside the Netherlands are not in insolvency proceedings. Two administrators have been appointed as trustees and are continuing to assess the situation at VanMoof and the possibility of a restart. That includes exploring an asset sale to a third party so that VanMoof could continue operations.

So basically, a company could buy up VanMoof's operations and assets without having to take responsibility for the company's outstanding debt. The bankruptcy decision came quickly, despite the court having previously issued a two month cooling off period that protected VanMoof from creditors. It's understood that this can happen in cases where administrators can easily see that a company has exhausted all available cash and any options for financing and sale.
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VanMoof, the Most Funded E-bike Company in the World, Declared Bankrupt More

VanMoof, the Most Funded E-bike Company in the World, Declared Bankrupt

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  • Go spoke, go broke (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @05:27AM (#63695784)

    Pedestrian and proud.

  • most funded goes broke? (Score:3)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @05:47AM (#63695816)
    where did all the money go, did they embezzle it? sounds like they milked that cash cow until it went dry and died,

    • Re:most funded goes broke? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by M_Hulot ( 859406 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @05:58AM (#63695834)

      It seems like used a lot of custom parts and offered service under warranty. The custom parts were too expensive for them to make a decent profit margin and so unreliable that their service costs rocketed.

      Allegedly.

      • Agile hardware (Score:4, Insightful)

        by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @06:43AM (#63695886)

        Argh, this so much sounds like they took the whole 'agile' approach and tried to apply it to hardware. Elon Musk really made this popular, but even Tesla had crazy issues learning how to do manufacturing (and largely ditched a lot of the big ideas like full robotics), and SpaceX only make a few dozen rocket a year so doesn't have the same embodied liability.

        Every product I have ever worked on it has never ceased to amaze me the various ways in which a user would find a means to destroy it, or how some minor component (like a rectifier diode) being swapped out and not properly qualified always had a habit of coming back to ruin your day.

        The only way I've ever seen it work is design defensively, then test test test. If you are making lots of something then you can lean out the design but you have to spend more on testing. If you're making less you over-design to save on testing. I have not seen any magical way to change this tradeoff by 'moving fast and breaking things'.

        • Re:Agile hardware (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @08:13AM (#63696054)

          Argh, this so much sounds like they took the whole 'agile' approach and tried to apply it to hardware.

          I think you are spot-on there. agile is okay for certain things, but not for production. Once you are out of research, if you don't make the production as rote as possible, you'll be bleeding money.

          The only way I've ever seen it work is design defensively, then test test test. If you are making lots of something then you can lean out the design but you have to spend more on testing. If you're making less you over-design to save on testing. I have not seen any magical way to change this tradeoff by 'moving fast and breaking things'.

          Moving fast and breaking things is kind of a fairy tale. At some point, you have to have things reduced to practice.

          I'm certain that Stockton Rush considered himself part of that group. He hated safety, he considered it as stifling "innovation". And he totally rejected any concerns that his Titan submersible might fail and kill people. Then it failed and killed people.

          And I'll probably get modded as troll for this, but Spacex's Falcon 9's are pretty reduced to practice. My guess is that Elon must be kept at arms length.

          But the similarities to Stockton Rush are there with Starship development. Some head scratching decisions like the launch pad construction, which is reduced to practice otherwise and in other installations, the construction of a launch facility with populated areas way too close. Population centers way too close for that concept that you want to break stuff.

          The point is, at some point if you don't step back from the move fast and break things, one way or another, you fail in the best case, or fail and kill people in the worst. At least VanMoof only went bankrupt.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sique ( 173459 )
            Lets say, agile can be fine for production if it does not involve any hardware. To switch out Gigabytes of code can be acceptable if there is a smooth upgrade process in place, To switch out a piece of hardware will always incur substantial cost, and VanMoof had do spend that money on warranty replacements and upgrades.

          • Moving fast and breaking

            Just like their ebikes!

        • Had a reel of tiny diodes that shuffled around in their tiny plastic compartments and ended up with quite a chunk of boards with the diodes being soldered on backwards, and sometimes sideways (cameras tend to catch the sideways ones though). It was a safety part so it didn't really affect basic operation and wasn't caught during the rapid quick board tests., but it caused a lot of consternation and finger pointing when they had to be withdrawn and replaced.

          Designing defensively though, kills profits :-) R

        • Argh, this so much sounds like they took the whole 'agile' approach and tried to apply it to hardware. Elon Musk really made this popular, but even Tesla had crazy issues learning how to do manufacturing (and largely ditched a lot of the big ideas like full robotics), and SpaceX only make a few dozen rocket a year so doesn't have the same embodied liability.

          If they did so, they did it poorly. I remember that one of the developers of the agile methodology is actually Toyota - but they know when to use it and when not to.

          As for Musk's companies, it seems to be more "reach for the moon, miss, but still hit the sky" - IE he shoots for fully robotic, but is willing to fail at a point that is still more automated than his competition.

      • The bikes were all custom, and were not a reliable as most bikes, so a lot were fixed under warranty - and the delays and excuses were getting more frequent ...

    • Re:most funded goes broke? (Score:5, Informative)

      by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @06:04AM (#63695840)
      "Dutch financial publication FD noted, in January, that the accounts showed VanMoof was actually losing money on each of its expensive bikes, due to the cost of repair. "

      https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/10/vanmoof-the-e-bike-darling-skids-off-track-sales-paused-execs-depart/

      • Re:most funded goes broke? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @08:14AM (#63696058)

        "Dutch financial publication FD noted, in January, that the accounts showed VanMoof was actually losing money on each of its expensive bikes, due to the cost of repair.

        They made up for that in volume.

        • A sort of hardware pyramid scheme where the warranty repairs for the old bikes are funded by sales of the new bikes. Once the growth curve slows, it would come crashing down in a pile of debt - which it appears is exactly what happened.

    • did they embezzle it?

      Virtually no one is stupid enough to embezzle all the money. It's far easier to spend recklessly than engage in actual fraud.

      • Virtually no one is stupid enough to embezzle all the money. It's far easier to spend recklessly than engage in actual fraud.

        Also much easier to get funding for the next big one, now that you have your network of investors established.

        So... maximum of 10% for personal use.

    • Re:most funded goes broke? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @06:55AM (#63695912)

      I once interviewed at a startup trying to make an electric scooter thing. The entire company was loaded with grads on good money working on adding IOT connectivity and writing apps for the thing. But there was nobody there who had a clue how to make a motor, controller and battery system work. They had bought some software of some dude they found on the internet, and they were poking around at it and trying to figure it out while trying to find 'someone in china' to sort it out.

      When I met the founder, he commented that the electronics was the easy bit, and he couldn't pay me much but there might be future opportunities as the company grew. Needless to say I didn't take the job and the company never got their scooter out the door and is no more.

      I guess my point is that for some reason there is this conviction among tech people (outside places like Germany) that hardware is really easy compared to writing some JS code for a webpage. They will happily pay a decent JS dev big dollars to make some text boxes move around a page, but the thought of paying the person designing the hardware anything more than technician rates makes them go crazy.

      It's like how Elon's big discovery was that 'manufacturing things is hard'. There are no doubt books about this incredible insight and classes at business school now, about this incredible discovery that required the genius of Musk to figure out.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        A company that can't make a profit on a multi-thousand dollar bike but is the most funded bike company ever is a roaring success. They're just not in the business you think they are. It's kind of tragic that engineers are so focused on delivering value, not extracting value like business people.

        • Man, I wonder if you could put something together for investors that eradicates such businesspeople from the companies entirely. You just find a group of engineers separately to design, then people to design assembly line, to market, etc. Always guarded against business leadership vampirizing funds. It is a meta investment company, or an investment proxy investors can invest in to be safe from attacks, like a VPN for money.

      • I guess my point is that for some reason there is this conviction among tech people (outside places like Germany) that hardware is really easy compared to writing some JS code for a webpage. They will happily pay a decent JS dev big dollars to make some text boxes move around a page, but the thought of paying the person designing the hardware anything more than technician rates makes them go crazy.

        A fair number of people are like that. It's called "smartest person in the room syndrome".

        People who are indeed very smart, but only in a few areas, while thinking their knowledge extends to everything.

        So they voice their not always well informed opinions on matters, and if the boss, take the folks down a bad path, and if not the boss, get really pissed off if you don't follow their "wisdom".

        I deal with that in a501(c)(3) I'm the head of. We have a lot of good and qualified people on our board, and

        • It is easy for a SMITR to look at a problem and get angry with the existing bad solution, announce a clever new solution and move on, without ever being told:

            1. Other people thought of his clever solution before.

            2. It was not a good solution because of small details he overlooked.
          • Good engineering managers ( and Musk is possibly the best ) are happy to have fact-based debates, where the clever new solutions can be *shown* to be incorrect.

            • Re:most funded goes broke? (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Zak3056 ( 69287 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @11:54AM (#63696670) Journal

              Good engineering managers ( and Musk is possibly the best )

              Outside looking in, it appears that the most successful (from an engineering point of view, not a revenue point of view) things that Elon is involved with have him at arms length from the process and spending his time evangelizing / raising money. Elon Musk as an engineering manager gives you shit like "Full Self Driving," the Cybertruck, and post-acquisition Twitter.

              Elon is, objectively, a shitty engineer and a shitty manager of engineers. He does, however, bring a Jobsian scale RDF to the table.

          • It is easy for a SMITR to look at a problem and get angry with the existing bad solution, announce a clever new solution and move on, without ever being told:

            1. Other people thought of his clever solution before. 2. It was not a good solution because of small details he overlooked.

            It is a matter of approach. And it's a matter of ego. Oftentimes the SMITR is fully convinced that they are not only the smartest people in the room, but that all others are pretty stupid.

            We all have areas we are good in, and areas we aren't good in. The key to success is listening to the person who has the knowledge.

            The SMITR doesn't have that ability, I've found out. They read a book, and therefore know more than anyone else about the matter being discussed. The key is handling their ego. I'm pretty g

            • I believe you are confused:

              "Elon Musk unveils Hyperloop preliminary design study
              12 August 2013
              [...]
              To overcome the limiting problem of air building up in front of the traveling pod, Hyperloop proposes mounting an electric compressor fan on the nose of the pod that actively transfers high pressure air from the front to the rear of the vessel. The mechanism would also create an air cushion that would create a low-friction suspension system."

              https://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/08/hyperloop-20130812.html

              • I believe you are confused:

                "Elon Musk unveils Hyperloop preliminary design study 12 August 2013

                [...]

                To overcome the limiting problem of air building up in front of the traveling pod, Hyperloop proposes mounting an electric compressor fan on the nose of the pod that actively transfers high pressure air from the front to the rear of the vessel. The mechanism would also create an air cushion that would create a low-friction suspension system."

                https://www.greencarcongress.c... [greencarcongress.com]

                There is an interesting thing going on - How well does a turbine push air in a vacuum? How is a coast to coast or even a West coast interstate 5 tube going to keep a consistent vacuum? https://interestingengineering... [interestin...eering.com] Take it up with these folks

                https://interestingengineering... [interestin...eering.com] Or these guys.

                And then there is passenger safety. I won't go too far into that, but if one of the passenger chambers cracks open - well humans don't fare too well in vacuums.

                In reality, I'm not confused, the hyperloop is wha

                • 'There is an interesting thing going on - How well does a turbine push air in a vacuum?"

                  See the words I quoted: "actively transfers high pressure air" ?

                  See the words in the link: "consists of paired partially-evacuated tubes" ?
            • That can't be right. Ol olsoc read a book, and therefore know more than anyone else about the matter being discussed ...

              • That can't be right. Ol olsoc read a book, and therefore know more than anyone else about the matter being discussed ...

                I do bug the shit out of people like you. That amuses me, and I am pleased.

                While I triggered you, and find that satisfying, actually, I am the dumbest person in the room - you learn a whole lot more.

            • My favorite one of those obvious fails is the hyperloop car, which has a ducted fan at the back whilst running in a vacuum. It'

              Vacuums are rarely actually "true" vacuums with nothing in it. Even intergalactic space as the occasion hydrogen atom wandering around.

              Instead, you have varying "hardness" of vacuums. If the hyperloop is actually a "soft" vacuum, still enough for very low air resistance, but not requiring anywhere near as much pumping, and the cars fill the tunnel up tightly enough and are fast enough, I could very much see them collecting a higher pressure front in front of them.

              At which point having some aerodynamics to

              • Vacuums are rarely actually "true" vacuums with nothing in it. Even intergalactic space as the occasion hydrogen atom wandering around.

                Instead, you have varying "hardness" of vacuums. If the hyperloop is actually a "soft" vacuum, still enough for very low air resistance, but not requiring anywhere near as much pumping, and the cars fill the tunnel up tightly enough and are fast enough, I could very much see them collecting a higher pressure front in front of them.

                At which point having some aerodynamics to shove the air behind the car makes sense.

                1 mbar isn't a very soft vacuum. It can be achieved without a whole lot of problem in the lab or my garage, Now, if you do the calculations on say a hundred mile system, it's going to be pretty tough. Going to need a lot of pumps all over the place, as well as expect to "lose" some at each stop. Unless they have some submarine rescue capsule like way of sealing off the passenger compartment of ingress and egress.

                • Hmm... Any particular reason you chose 1mbar? The $150 vacuum pump(for house and automotive work) off of harbor freight can supposedly do .03mbar, so I can definitely agree that 1 mbar should be relatively easy to do at home. But, as you say, difficult if you want 100 miles of it. So going above that to a softer vacuum would be a lot easier.

                  For example, AC lines only require 500(200 if you're going for a perfect job), which also happen to be around that of airplane cruising altitude. Which is also arou

                  • Hmm... Any particular reason you chose 1mbar? The $150 vacuum pump(for house and automotive work) off of harbor freight can supposedly do .03mbar, so I can definitely agree that 1 mbar should be relatively easy to do at home. But, as you say, difficult if you want 100 miles of it.

                    I got that info from the vacuum science page at: https://www.vacuumscienceworld... [vacuumscienceworld.com]

                    "Creating a vacuum of 1 mbar is not rocket science, but when you “scale-up the model” along, for example 200 km of a 4 m-diameter tube (i.e. over 2.5million m3 of space), a proper vacuum pumping system requires a lot of expertise and understanding of vacuum physics, material knowledge as well as vacuum simulation skills. The pump system itself needs to handle both a fast pump down of the system as well as holdin

      • People have got rich on similar things before. Find hardware that's reached commodity status, add slick front end, PROFIT! There's loads of stuff out there that the big brands never so much as specified the location of the logo on, you literally just go to china and shop around for the 99% complete thing you need, tell them what you want for the final 1% and they give you a price for 10000 units a month. I'm guessing the company found out the hard way that e-bikes aren't at commodity levels yet, you need to

      • "Maker" == geek who missed shop class.

      • At least it wasn't a submarine.

      • I guess my point is that for some reason there is this conviction among tech people (outside places like Germany) that hardware is really easy compared to writing some JS code for a webpage.

        I think you're suffering from observer bias, likely from hearing only stories about the stupid people going bankrupt. Firstly these tech idiots exist in Germany. Secondly there are many tech startups who have no problem realising that hardware is a thing that needs to be considered outside of Germany.

        In fact I would counter your argument completely, Vanmoof's biggest failing is that they didn't just use an off the shelf item purchased in Germany and instead tried to reinvent the wheel (or the two-wheeler in

      • Sounds like they didn't even offer you worthless stocks. Just "opportunities".

        I wonder if they found someone worth what they were willing to pay.

    • You dont *steal* money, you pay yourself a huge salary and get bonuses for "performance", just like the non-profits

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      There's nothing easier to do in a business than running out of cash. It's happens naturally every time you get distracted or get your predictions wrong. It's been a wild ride for bike companies since 2020, with historically unprecedented demand coinciding with supply chain catastrophes, and then collapsing demand coinciding with supply chain recoveries. Even a well run company would have trouble sticking that landing.

      Van Moof took a contrarian approach to e-bikes, custom designing many parts of their bike

  • That's what happens ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @07:15AM (#63695952)

    ... when you have epically dimwitt non-cyclists design a bicycle.

    Having some Bluetooth bullshit as a key feature and a weak battery that isn't quickly relacable is a really stupid idea for a bike that wants and has to be more than a short-lived fashionable gadget for hipsters with the newest iphone and dispensable cash to blow.

    The only thing that had me vaguely interested was the design of the frame that communicated "modern sturdy utility design". Sadly, the bike itself was anything but.

    It's not only VanMoof through. I got the most "affordable" full suspension electric ATB I could find that is legal to ride on German roads and even that has bullshit design "features" and flat-out idiotic design flaws that make me want to kick the designers and marketers teeth in. Like carriers that are as sturdy as a bent coat hanger and fastened with screws that I think would fit in eyeglasses.

    Now could someone please build a bike that can switch from regular to Street mode legally, has an easily removable battery that I can take with me in seconds, a fully enclosed maintenance free drive train, has sophisticated anti-theft and built in lock features and built in cargo features that are an integral part of the frame and actually usable?

    And leave out the Bluetooth bullshit, aside from perhaps a sturdy smartphone holder with a charging port. I got my electronics on me, I don't need them on my bike, thank you.

    That would have my interest.

    • People wanted VanMoofs, including the Bluetooth.

      They just couldn't build them cheap enough or reliable enough.
    • "That's what happens when you have epically dimwitt non-cyclists design a bicycle."

      The founders were Dutch.
      The bikes were designed in Holland.
      Dutch people cycle from about 3 years of age.

      That's what happens when dimwits make smart remarks.

    • Now could someone please build a bike that can switch from regular to Street mode legally

      What are modes on an e-bike?

      What's the difference from "regular" and "street" modes?

      Thanks in advance!

      • ... "regular" and "street" ...

        Most places require electric scooters to be speed-limited. Hence there must be a switch for 12/25/none (km/h) limiting. Some e-scooters have a higher speed than e-motorcycles, with fat 'all-terrain' tyres that can only be used on a paved surface.

    • Pretty much all the manufacturers who use the bosch motor / battery system meet this requirement. There are loads of brands using this and they work fine with sturdy racks and panniers. Most aren't the most attractive bike though and just a normal frame design.

      Probably the only thing missing is integrated anti-theft measures.

    • Apparently "cyclist" doesn't translate directly to Dutch because there are two words, one that's probably closer to cyclist with potentially implications of Lycra and speed. They have another word for those who go about their daily business in a way which happens to involve a bike.

      I'm not Dutch, that's my paraphrasing of a Dutch person I knew.

      Anyway, you probably don't want a Cyclist designing a bike for the latter use case either.

    • Let me get this straight.

      You bought the cheapest crap (âoemost affordableâ) you could find, then are surprised when the carriers arenâ(TM)t sturdy and the screws are tiny, cheap little things? Then you ask for a laundry list of high end features in your next bike?

      Problem might be at least partially behind the keyboard on this one.

      • You purchase a lower cost Porsche you are still expecting it to have basic features and luxury of a Porsche.
        But in this case even with the cheaper end of the price range you are still paying a high price.

  • BROWNING Co., firearm mfgr, bought a Japanese bike co circa ‘77 to rebadge in the US. It lost its total investment in parts inventory to support the product. Within a year it was gone. Total bust. Bikes are simple. The business is not

  • Their bikes look stupid and clearly their leadership is incompetent. Fire sale it all and let someone else do something useful with the assets
  • Used to be a rabid biker, but I can't do that any more. Walking is sufficient. Also, if I could use one, I'd want a bog-standard bycicle with no stupid features like Bluetooth; give me eight of mechanically-actuated Derailleur gears, and a bell sufficiently loud to five a dog a jump scare, and I'd be happy as a pig in shit.
    • Fuck, my typing is atrocious today. Apologies for the typographical errors; my fingers aren't what they used to be. Neither is my keyboard, for that matter.

  • I am a bankruptcy attorney, but this is not legal advice. Pay my retainer if you want that!

    >So basically, a company could buy up VanMoof's operations and
    >assets without having to take responsibility for the company's
    >outstanding debt.

    uh, yeah, that's how bankruptcy works.

    How it's *supposed* to work, for that matter.

    noone is losing more than they already have by this.

    The company isn't viable; that's established. As is the fact that it can't be sold for enough to pay its debts.

    So what bankruptcy *d

  • Kind of odd, even though I had been looking at eBikes before, I never heard of Van Moof...

    I guess that doesn't matter now, but feel sad for all the owners that have a bike they liked where now parts will be harder and harder to find... and they may be locked out of?

    Maybe a buyer will still come forth.

  • There's an e-bike store in town that sells models that cost from $1.5k-13k USD. They're a money-printing machine. For e-bike mfgrs, they do have to have a distribution channel AND a parts&service channel if distributors don't provide it. It's very expensive to ship these to/from the customer, which is why it would work better as a regional or local micro dealer model akin to a bike store. E-bikes ain't like electric skateboards where it's reasonable $ to ship them.

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