VeloMetro Mobility

Kody Baker
Vancouver, BC

The pitch

Kody Baker from Vancouver, BC, pitched VeloMetro Mobility in Season 13, Episode 13, asking the Dragons for $1M for 5% of the company.

Asked for$1M for 5%
Valuation$20Mimplied by the ask
OutcomeDealwith Arlene Dickinson
Final deal$1M for 7.5%valued at $13.33M

Offers in the Den

Dragon	Offer	Result
Jim Treliving	Did not want to risk cash on an expensive, unproven scale-up	Out
Vincenzo Guzzo	Did not want to be part of the first wave of investors in an unproven dockless bike-share model	Out
Manjit Minhas	Felt the company was at an experimental stage, not investment stage	Out
Michele Romanow	Liked the big idea but felt the founder lacked the fundraising drive needed to succeed	Out
Arlene Dickinson	$1,000,000 for 7.5%	Accepted

Cody Baker, a mechanical engineer from Vancouver, BC, asked the Dragons for $1,000,000 for 5% of VeloMetro Mobility. The company makes an electric-assist, pedal-powered Velo Mobile called Veemo, a half-car, half-bike vehicle offered through a dockless bike-share network accessed by app, with users charged 28 cents per minute. The vehicles can travel up to 100 kilometres on a charge, reach a top speed of 32 kilometres per hour, and can be manufactured at scale for about $5,000 each in China. The company has raised about $7 million in capital, grants and tax credits, holds a post-money valuation of $15 million, and is seeking a $20 million valuation with this new investment, with plans to deploy up to 500 vehicles in Vancouver by year end before expanding to Seattle, Portland and California.

Jim Treliving, Vincenzo Guzzo, Manjit Minhas and Michele Romanow all went out, citing concerns about the unproven market, high capital intensity and the risk of regulatory pushback from cities. Arlene Dickinson offered the full $1,000,000 but for 7.5% instead of 5%, which Cody Baker accepted.

Pitch details from CBC’s Dragons’ Den pitch page.