CAKE, the Swedish electrical motorbike maker recognized for its eye-catching designs, is reportedly submitting for chapter after failing to lift sufficient funding to maintain operations afloat.
Swedish media has reported that CAKE’s board is submitting a chapter utility. There was no announcement from the corporate itself, which as lately as final week was nonetheless making press bulletins together with about additional European expansions.
CAKE had additionally simply begun delivering its latest electrical motorbike mannequin, the CAKE Bukk.
There have been indicators of bother at CAKE nonetheless, together with a reported suspension of wage funds final week.
The most recent chapter submitting information comes as the corporate seems to have failed to seek out the mandatory follow-on funding in a C spherical that will have pushed in direction of greater quantity manufacturing and profitability.
CAKE founder and CEO Stefan Ytterborn was quoted in Swedish media attributing the monetary struggles to components starting from inside points to the worldwide monetary local weather.
“It’s not one however a number of circumstances which have brought about us to finish up on this scenario. Local weather points are now not in focus, we’re in a recession. It’s about us, nevertheless it’s additionally in regards to the enterprise capital ecosystem. In the mean time it’s utterly useless, there aren’t any takers within the later part Cake is in.”
Ytterborn has confirmed to Electrek that CAKE was pressured to file for chapter on February 1 of this yr after a lead investor jumped ship shortly earlier than the newest funding spherical was as a consequence of shut.
The vast majority of the corporate is owned by only a few key people and funds:
- AMF, Swedish pension firm: 11.3%.
- Stefan Ytterborn, founding father of Cake: 10.4%.
- Creandum, Swedish enterprise capital firm: 10.4%.
- Again In Black Capital, the Lundin household’s funding firm: 9.3%.
- Headline, American enterprise capital firm: 9.2%.
- Rutger Arnhult, property profile: 6.4%.
CAKE has seen a number of giant funding rounds over the previous couple of years however seems to haven’t achieved enough annual motorbike manufacturing quantity to attain profitability.
The corporate additionally reportedly had as many as six totally different lessons of shares with newer buyers receiving decrease precedence to dividends, additional disincentivizing follow-on funding from new events.
It’s been a troublesome yr or two for a lot of electrical motorbike corporations, with SONDORS showing to enter a messy tailspin and Arcimoto having its personal share of economic troubles. Electrical bicycle corporations have additionally been hurting as gross sales haven’t maintained the identical speedy development that buoyed the business popping out of the pandemic years.
But it surely’s not all unhealthy information. New electrical motorbike corporations with apparently wholesome monetary books and manufacturing outlooks have sprung up as properly, launching new fashions and pushing the business ahead.
Established motorbike corporations corresponding to Harley-Davidson and Kawasaki have additionally pushed additional into the electrical motorbike house, bringing elevated stability and monetary backing to the business.
