mobby ride

Mobby Ride, founded in 2019 by Ryo Hyuga and based in Fukuoka, was a startup focused on providing electric kick-scooter sharing services in Japan. The company offered e-mobility solutions targeting private areas like parks, university campuses, and factories to circumvent Japanese regulations that classified e-scooters as mopeds, requiring licenses and specific safety equipment for public road use.

The founder, Ryo Hyuga, brought experience from the advertising and fintech sectors. After graduating from Aoyama Gakuin University, he worked at an advertising agency before co-founding AnyPay, a fintech company. The idea for Mobby Ride emerged from a new business division that analyzed global investment trends, identifying mobility as a high-growth sector. Hyuga saw an opportunity in addressing Japan's regulatory hurdles for micro-mobility, viewing the challenge of adapting technology to legal frameworks as a core function for a startup. The company launched verification tests at Kyushu University in November 2019 to gather data and build a case for wider e-scooter adoption. Mobby Ride's business model involved providing its services to municipalities and facilities and working to ease regulations through systems like the government's "new business special exception system." In September 2020, the company announced a partnership with Chari Chari, a bicycle-sharing service, to collaborate on shared ports and maintenance.

Despite raising $740K in a seed round in December 2020, the company has since ceased operations and is considered deadpooled.

Keywords: e-scooter sharing, micro-mobility, last-mile transportation, smart city solutions, Fukuoka startup, mobility as a service, Japanese mobility, shared transportation, electric kick-scooter, Ryo Hyuga, vehicle sharing, university campus mobility, factory transport solutions, regulatory sandbox, Chari Chari partnership