The now well-documented success story of NovaUCD, Zipp Mobility last week announced its plans to add another 30 jobs in the company across 2021. The company, set up by Quinn School Graduate Conor Gleeson in 2019 has offices in Buckinghamshire, Somerset and UCD, employing current UCD students and recent graduates amongst others.
2020 saw Zipp Mobility secure €1.1 million in seed funding, with €250,000 of this coming from Enterprise Ireland while launching e-scooter operations in three locations across the United Kingdom. CEO Conor Gleeson said, “This last year has been a very successful one for the company and we are currently operating in more UK locations than some of the bigger industry players which is a great achievement for a young Irish start-up such as Zipp.”
Currently, the company has 450 e-scooters in operation in the UK, which have carried customers across over 30,000 journeys covering 85,000km in the process. Zipp looks to bring the fleets up to 600 vehicles as the company continues to grow. Gleeson spoke of the environmental benefits of their success, claiming that customers, “who travelled the equivalent of twice around the circumference of the Earth in the last two months, replaced approximately 9,000 car journeys and removed around 7 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, which are very encouraging statistics.”
Gleeson detailed their future plans by saying “We look forward to an even more exciting year ahead and we already have four additional launches lined-up for the coming months, including the first public shared e-scooter scheme on the island of Ireland.”
The launch of e-scooter schemes in Ireland is subject to new legislation being passed into law. Gleeson is confident that e-scooters will be facilitated in 2021, and on the back of this, plans to complete the company’s Series A funding round this year before launching the service nationwide – creating 30 jobs in the process. The ambitious start-up is not limiting itself to a domestic market, with Gleeson outlaying his plans “Our overall vision for Zipp is ‘mobility done right’ and our aim for the year ahead is to lead the Irish e-scooter-sharing market and expand our operations internationally.”
2021, like 2020, will be marred by the pandemic and its restrictions. Since the advent of the pandemic, the Zipp Mobility’s efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 include equipping the e-scooters with anti-viral handlebar wraps (which kill 99.98% of coronaviruses) and strict daily disinfection of the e-scooters.
Conor Bergin – Business Correspondent
