According to Daiki Okai, founder and CEO of Luup, the ideal city would consist of a single large "station front," through which each gas station, office building, and even parking lot is physically connected. People wouldn't have to walk for more than half an hour to get to train stations there; in fact, they wouldn't have to walk at all.


"Luup means to lay out first and last-mile transportation, and make a future where all individuals can move openly," says Okai, 29, in a video interview. The young founder wanted to create a method for elderly caregivers to quickly reach their patients, especially in areas without easy train access, shortly after graduating from the University of Tokyo. His startup, Luup, which provides commuters with the opportunity to rent and ride electric bicycles, scooters, and other vehicles, was founded on his original concept.


One of Japan's leaders in micro-mobility, a mode of transportation involving lightweight vehicles, Luup was named to the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list last year. Through Luup's app, which has more than 100,000 downloads in the Google Play store, users can identify nearby ports and rent e-bikes or scooters for 15 yen per minute, or roughly $7 per hour. The Tokyo-based startup claims to have 10,000 electric bicycles in its fleet. According to Okai, the startup's "super-high density" of parking hubs makes it an excellent option for first- and last-mile transportation, allowing users to use scooters even over short distances. A commuter could, for instance, walk five minutes from their home to a nearby Luup port and then ride a scooter the rest of the way, as opposed to walking 20 minutes to their closest train station.


Having assigned ports additionally separates Luup from American e-bike new companies like Los Angeles-based Bird and San Francisco-based Lime, which permit clients to get or leave their bikes at any area. Even though this "dockless" model might be more convenient, it also makes it possible for devices to be stolen or damaged. E-scooter theft cases doubled in Los Angeles alone in 2022, although the majority involved private property, according to Los Angeles Police Department statistics.


According to Satoshi Mukoyama, CFO at Luup, similar difficulties do not exist in Japan. He continues, "I don't want to be overly patriotic, but people in Japan tend to be cautious." On the street, people don't really think they would steal anything.


Luup raised $33.5 million in a funding round worth 4.5 billion yen in April, more than doubling its total funding to 9.1 billion yen. The round was supported by existing investors ANRI, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial's SMBC Venture Capital, and Spiral Capital, a venture capital firm headed by Masao Hirano, a former head of McKinsey Japan. The funding round also included new investors like GMO Internet Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, which is the trust banking arm of Japan's largest bank by total assets. Forbes was informed by Luup that the startup anticipates becoming profitable within one to two years, despite his refusal to disclose the new round's valuation.


"Luup is an uncommon organization that is genuinely attempting to make a 'social foundation,'" Takashi Chiba, accomplice at Twisting Capital, said in a proclamation regarding the startup's most recent financing. " The items have become famous among clients and are utilized everyday, prompting the organization's prevailing situation in the field of micromobility."


LUUP1 Scoot Commuters riding an e-bike and e-scooter from Luup. National e-scooter law reforms are paving the way for Luup's expansion. Courtesy of Luup Under patched up limitations that produce results in July, riders beyond 16 years old will never again have to wear protective caps or have driver's licenses, subsequently expanding the utilization instances of bikes, says Okai. The startup plans to double its number of stations to 10,000 by 2025 and expand into several other major Japanese cities within the next year with the new funding.


According to a McKinsey report released in August, Asia has led the way in micromobility investment since 2018, closely followed by North America and Europe. A separate April analysis revealed that the global micromobility market is worth approximately $180 billion today and will reach $440 billion by 2030.


However, not all forms of micromobility have reached mainstream status; for example, Japanese transportation law did not recognize e-scooters until 2020. Additionally, the startup faces competition from other emerging providers. These include Seoul-based startup Swing, which launched operations in Japan last July on the back of a $24 million Series B funding round, and OpenStreet's Hello Mobility, which is backed by SoftBank and offers electric Segways and mopeds in addition to scooters.


According to Kersten Heineke, a partner at McKinsey & Co. who is based in Frankfurt and is co-leader of the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility, "many [micromobility] companies have been very good at expanding very quickly and scaling up their business, without so much as caring so much about profitability." The challenge is gaining a deeper comprehension of the operations and demonstrating that this can be long-term sustainable, he continues.


Okai sees Luup as a provider of various mobility options in the future, including vehicles for the disabled and elderly. The group is looking into how these accessible options might look, including whether they might have automated functions. A single-seat, four-wheeled scooter with a slower maximum speed than current models is one possible design.


Okai asserts, "Micromobility is just the first step to what we aim to accomplish." The network that we have can be the foundation for many services—anything that can solve problems in our day-to-day lives.”