Zip-Zapping on Electric Scooter Through the City with Grow
- Grow Mobility is a micro-mobility and payments platform offering technology-enabled solutions for short-term transportation needs.
- Its fleet includes electric scooters and other light electric vehicles across multiple Latin American markets.
- Grow Mobility also operates a digital wallet for peer-to-peer payments, serving urban commuters and underbanked individuals.
Grow Mobility combined electric scooters, other light electric vehicles, and digital payments on one platform. Its mobility service offered short-term rentals, while its wallet supported peer-to-peer payments.
Grow Mobility is a micro-mobility and payments platform based in Latin America. The company was formed through a series of mergers involving Grin, Yellow, and Flinto.
Micro-mobility refers to transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric vehicles that may be borrowed through a self-service scheme for short-term use within a town or city. Grow Mobility applied this model through a fleet of electric scooters and other light electric vehicles.
History of Grow Mobility
Grow Mobility was founded by Ariel Lambrecht, Guilherme Freire, and Jonathan Lewy.
The company provided light electric vehicle rentals in Latin American markets. It was formed after the merger of Grin, an app-based electric kick scooter rental platform, and Yellow, an app-based rental platform for light electric vehicles including scooters and e-bikes. In 2019, Grow Mobility also merged with Flinto, a peer-to-peer payments app for underbanked and non-banked consumers.
Grow Mobility’s mergers
Grow Mobility’s history began with Grin Scooters, an electric scooter rental company established in Mexico in 2018 by Bryan Zambrano, Jonathan Lewy, Karime German, and Sergio Romo. Grin had operations in Colombia and Brazil following its merger with Brazilian electric scooter company RIDE Mobility.
Grin offered users three cities in which they could operate and a mobile application for renting electric scooters. The app was available on Android and iOS, and Grin restricted scooter use to people aged 18 and above. Users scanned a QR code on each scooter to unlock it.
Users were required to wear helmets and ride on the streets rather than on sidewalks. The company operated its own fleet through a station-based model. It also partnered with stores and enterprises to provide designated parking zones and paid stores to keep vehicles overnight.
A few months after Grin merged its electric scooter business with RIDE Mobility, it merged with Yellow in January 2019. Yellow was a bike-share startup based in Brazil that had also expressed ambitions to enter electric scooters.
Yellow raised $63 million in a funding round led by GGV Capital. The round was described as the largest Series A round for a Latin American startup.
As part of the merger, Grin and Yellow rebranded as Grow Mobility. Initially, both apps maintained their existing apps and brands. Grow Mobility operated more than 135,000 micro-mobility vehicles across six countries and planned to increase its fleet across Latin America.
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Grow Mobility later merged with payments startup Flinto to create a digital wallet. Flinto enabled users to make peer-to-peer payments, add minutes and text messages to their phones, and pay bills and merchants.
Flinto served people with and without bank accounts. People without bank accounts could deposit cash at local shops and restaurants.
“It started to make a lot of sense to bring Flinto as part of the team to develop the wallet because, for Latin America, the wallet is not an add-on,” Grin Co-Founder Jonathan Lewy told the news outlet.
“It’s a need if you want to tap into a big market of underbanked or non-banked. The only way to bring them on the platform is through a wallet. For us, the wallet is something that we see as the future of the company.”
Later in 2020, investor Felipe Henriquez acquired a controlling stake in unlisted Latin American scooter firm Grow Mobility. No cash was exchanged under the terms of the deal, and Grow investors retained about 20% of the company, according to a person with direct knowledge of the transaction.
Grow Mobility’s subscriptions and funding
During the pandemic, Grow Mobility switched from charging users on a per-ride basis to offering tailor-made subscriptions.
The subscriptions allowed users to rent a particular vehicle, receive it, and keep it at home for a month with unlimited rides during that period.
Grow Mobility raised a total of $150M over two rounds. Its latest funding was raised on Oct 1, 2020, in a Venture - Series Unknown round.
Grow Mobility was funded by Bossanova Investimentos and headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico.
Grow Mobility operates as a micro-mobility and payments platform in Latin America.
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