Cityscoot Plays for Its Survival

The commercial court is today reviewing a takeover offer for the Paris-based electric scooter rental company Cityscoot.

On Thursday, July 6, 2023, it was a day of hopefuls for Cityscoot. The City of Paris officially announced the winners of the tender for electric scooter rentals in the capital, granting the rental company the honor of being one of the three authorized operators to operate in the city, with a new five-year mandate.

Four months later, the celebration was already over. In mid-November, the company declared itself insolvent to the Paris commercial court, “seeking protection” while looking for new investors to deploy the new electric fleet it plans to gradually make available to its customers starting in 2024. Its request was granted, and it was placed under judicial reconstruction with continued activity.

The commercial court will therefore decide today on the takeover offer from the Spanish company Cooltra. If refused, the small blue scooters will immediately disappear from the streets of the capital.

Cityscoot claims to operate 2,500 vehicles in Paris, regularly used by 250,000 active users for a total of 18 million trips since the company’s founding in 2014. Besides Paris and 17 suburban towns, Cityscoot also operates in Italy in Milan and Turin.

At the beginning of 2023, the company suffered another blow when the city of Nice decided to part ways with the operator that had been serving its territory since 2018. Since then, it has trusted Yego, which offers a similar service but agreed to pay a higher fee. In an interview with Le Figaro, Cityscoot criticized a “auction-based fee system”, which it claimed jeopardized the sector. ” If this approach becomes widespread, there will be no such actors in the coming years,” said the operator at the time. The problem appears to be more deep-rooted…