Friday, 29 March 2024
Investment and AcquisitionsNews

The Bike Club secures £5.7 million from Codex Capital

Founded in 2016, the UK’s largest private bike rental company, the Bike Club, has secured £5.7 million worth of funding from Codex Capital. The sum will aid in the expansion of its fleet bicycles which will be available to families via a monthly subscription.

Jamie Lawson-Brown, a co-founder of Codex Capital commented, “We’re delighted to be partnering with the Bike Club to offer families a more sustainable and fundamentally better means of getting their children cycling. The combination of our investment and the entrepreneurial focus of the management team ensures we can increase the fleet rapidly, to offer this unique subscription service to an even greater number of families in this time of high growth.”

With a fleet of 16,000 bikes in circulation now, the investment will enable the company to grow to 150,000 bikes over the next three years, with 12,000 on route to arrive just before Christmas.

The Bike Club’s subscription service is priced between £5-£15 per month and is designed to benefit families looking for a flexible way to become healthier and more cycling savvy. The Bike Club features a variety of sizes without compromising on quality, ensuring your children can explore the outdoors on their perfect bike. Additionally, when the bike is exchanged, which can be done at any time during the subscription, it is collected from your doorstep and refurbished at the company’s 25,000 sq ft workshop before being given to its next owners. This model works to illuminate waste whilst complying to the company’s philosophy of providing the perfect bike to all families.

James Symes, CEO of the Bike Club, said “Our business model has always been focused on helping families to have bikes that grow with them, effectively solving the pain of constantly having to buy a new kids bike every 12-18 months as they get bigger. The Bike Club is a solution to a widespread problem for parents and for the industry.”

He added: “Over 80% of parents will teach their children to ride. People increasingly recognise that if you put your kids on the right sized, the better quality bike they’re much more likely to take up cycling and much more likely to have a better happier time.”

Mike Balfour, Founder of Fitness First and Chairman of the Bike Club commented, “In the same way Fitness First fundamentally changed the affordable health club industry, I can see the same growth opportunities with the Bike Club and family cycling.  We are at the forefront of a generational shift in how we get our families cycling.”

700,000 children’s bikes are sold each year in the UK with six million families claiming that cycling is a vital life skill for their children.