How is the cycling industry continuing to boom post-pandemic?

This is evident in the rise of companies such as leading e-bike engineers, Swytch Technology, which have grown without any VC funding
 
CEO and Co-Founder of Swytch Technology, Oliver Montague, is available to comment on the post-pandemic success of the UK’s e-bike industry

Covid-19 brought about a dramatic uptick in the cycling market in response to the pandemic, with retailers reporting a 40% increase in sales of bicycles in 2021 – including accessories, services and components. According to the latest figures, cycling is now 24 per cent more popular than it was 10 years ago. Alongside traditional cycling, e-bikes have experienced a moment in the spotlight, as they are replete with batteries that help reduce the amount of sweat required to travel somewhere. Swytch Technology, a startup that builds e-bike conversion kits, isn’t targeting the average cyclists, instead the company offers regular bike riders a way to turn their existing bike into an e-bike by engineering the ‘Swytch Kit’. Having launched in 2017 via an Indiegogo campaign, CEO and founder Oliver Montague discovered the benefits of crowdfunding, eventually giving way to ‘crowdshopping’, which involves having customers pay a deposit on a kit to be delivered at a future date. 

Montague argues that this has helped Swytch scale quickly for a small company without major VC funding by eliminating the need to hold onto too much inventory. Instead, Swytch uses the money from deposits to fund production. Following the launch of the lightest and smallest e-bike conversion kit in the world – the Swytch Kit – Swytch has witnessed rapid growth in their customer base  Serving as testament to their innovation, the company has estimated that 1–in–14 e-bikes currently on the road in the UK are powered by Swytch kits. In 2023, this number is predicted to increase to 1–in–10, equating to 10% of the entire e-bike market by volume. 

Continuing with their incredible trajectory of growth, the British e-bike engineers have gone from selling almost 16,000 conversion kits in 2020, to selling 30,000 in their latest release in September 2022, having introduced the world’s first pocket sized e-bike battery to the market. What’s more, the firm has built a waitlist of over 700,000 people who’ve registered an interest in their next release. Swytch’s latest study revealed that 27% of the nation stating they’ll change to an electric-powered mode of transport in the next few years,Swytch Technology has made it its mission to make sustainable and transport accessible for everyone. The Swytch Kit allows you to turn any bike electric for under £500, with a pocket-sized battery that costs less than 0.4 pence to charge per 10 miles range.

CEO and founder of Swytch, Oliver Montague, is available to comment on the following topics:

• The rise of e-bike popularity post-pandemic
• The mental and physical health benefits of commuting to work with active travel
• How Swytch used ‘crowdshopping’ to scale without VC money