Nearly precisely a yr in the past, we interviewed Revel founder and CEO Frank Reig when Revel was on the cusp of increasing into a number of enterprise traces past its unique scope of offering shared electrical mopeds. Right now, we’re taking a re-assessment to see how far the startup has come, and the gap it has to cowl to realize its said aim of serving to city cities transition to electrical transport.
Revel began its moped enterprise in New York in 2018, and it has since expanded into Miami, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. However in the event you simply heard in regards to the startup for the primary time as we speak, you may not even consider it as a moped sharing firm. Over the previous yr, Revel has pivoted sharply towards constructing fast-charging hubs for electrical autos, launching its first “Superhub”in NYC last June.
Alongside the way in which, the corporate additionally began (and quietly shut down) an e-bike subscription service and launched an all-electric ride-hailing service in NYC.
Reig lately instructed me the corporate is aiming to construct 200 fast-charging stalls in NYC by the tip of this yr, “and we’re taking pictures for a whole bunch extra in 2023 on high of that.” Revel’s ride-hailing enterprise, which at the moment has 50 Teslas driving round Manhattan, will even develop alongside the EV charging infrastructure, he stated.
“The way in which we take into consideration stations is at scale. Revel’s not within the one charger at a Walgreens. That doesn’t do something for town, and it doesn’t speed up any transition. The one strategy to drive EV adoption in cities is with an actual community of infrastructure, which doesn’t exist proper now. Till an organization like Revel builds all of it, this EV transition is simply numerous advertising and discuss.”
We sat down with Reig to speak about Revel’s enterprise, the corporate’s current funding from Blackrock, the necessity to work grid stability into its enterprise mannequin and the way the corporate thinks about profitability.
This interview, a part of an ongoing collection with founders who’re constructing transportation firms, has been edited for size and readability.
TC: It’s been a yr since our interview, and Revel seems like a distinct firm now! Again then, moped sharing was your important enterprise, however now the main focus is on EV charging infrastructure. Do you continue to have plans to develop your moped enterprise?
Frank Reig: Now we have 6,000 mopeds throughout 4 markets, so it’s a large enterprise that generates a large quantity of income. At this level, we’re form of ready for COVID to be over formally till we actually begin to consider increasing our micromobility footprint.
That stated, a number of the mopeds in our fleet are three, 4 years previous. So we’re beginning to consider the subsequent moped expertise we need to use. How can we need to take into consideration reinvesting in our markets, in our fleets?
You lately closed a $126 million Series B round led by Blackrock, and numerous that’s going into your EV charging hubs. I consider you stated you’re going to construct one other one in New York?
We’re constructing many extra in New York.
All people retains speaking in regards to the EV transition. Everybody retains speaking about how auto OEMs are saying they’re by no means going to supply one other fuel automobile once more. They’re falling over themselves to outdo each other. Nobody’s speaking about the place all these autos are going to cost. That story has not modified from final yr. If something, it’s gotten worse. Infrastructure is simply so missing, particularly in a few of these huge cities like New York.
New York state handed a legislation that stated all autos offered after 2035 should be electrical, and 20% of recent autos offered should be electrical by 2025. We actually have thousands and thousands of autos that must transition to electrical, and there’s actually no charging in sight, which is the place our technique comes into play.
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