Just shy of two months ago, we – McLaren Applied (through our electric scooter brand Lavoie) – acquired VanMoof following its unplanned bankruptcy. Our team has been fans of the brand since the beginning. We admire the way it has changed the perception of the mobility industry, and its potential to disrupt it even further. We acquired VanMoof because we fiercely believe in both the products and the brand.
We’ve now started on our plans to make VanMoof fit for the future, and whilst there’s a lot of work to be done, we couldn’t be more excited about what lies ahead.
McLaren Applied and e-scooter brand Lavoie
So let’s start by introducing ourselves. We are Elliott Wertheimer and Albert Nassar, the co-CEOs of Lavoie and, as of a month ago, VanMoof. We work very closely with McLaren Applied’s Non-Executive Chairman Nick Fry, who brings decades of automotive experience – including managing a winning Formula 1 team.
Lavoie is a new electric scooter company based out of London that was founded by McLaren Applied: a 30-year-old business that develops and delivers advanced engineering and technology solutions for organisations across motorsport, automotive, transport and beyond. As Nick likes to say, “If it has wheels and a motor, it has our interest”.
We’ve spent the last month working around the clock to understand what needs to be done at VanMoof in both the short and the long term. We’ve been reassembling teams, reaching out to stakeholders across the world, and putting plans in place to build a sustainable but also crucially a viable operation going forwards. There’s a lot of work to do in a short space of time, but we want to do it right rather than quickly.
Our three founding principles
Riders and their experience are central to everything we’ll do going forwards. That’s why we’ll make sure that all decisions we make hold true to these three commitments:
1. Keep riders on the road
We want to make it easy for VanMoof riders to enjoy their bikes at all times. We’ll do this by building a platform to make parts widely available and giving more third parties access to the technical know-how. The end-game? Any qualified bike shop in the world will be able to service your VanMoof bike.
2. Stay true to VanMoof’s innovative spirit
We strongly believe that the synergies between VanMoof, McLaren Applied, and Lavoie will allow us to create a world-leading mobility brand. To do so, it’s key that we stay at the cutting edge of design, engineering, and innovation.The production and sales of a selection of VanMoof’s current models will recommence soon, and our R&D teams will simultaneously be working on groundbreaking new products.
3. Deliver on reliability and communicate transparently
We’ll make VanMoof products more reliable. We’ll rebuild the supply chain and redesign and improve parts to make current models more robust and easier to fix. Our new products will be best in class and built to last. We’ll be open and transparent with you about our progress, and keep you in the loop with regular updates.
Your questions, answered
We’re certain that this new iteration of VanMoof will be a great success. But we also know that there are no shortcuts, and the restart will take time to get right.
We’re very aware that you’ve been waiting to get clarity on what VanMoof’s restart means for you. To answer what we can so far, we’ve created an FAQ for the most urgent questions.
Thank you for your patience. We are working as hard as we can to get things moving and to set VanMoof up for the future. We’ll be back in touch again with more news before too long.
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Has a question been left unanswered? Head to our FAQ page for more details about the next iteration of VanMoof. Read more about spare parts and our partner network here