TDK Corporation has announced that its subsidiary, TDK Ventures Inc., has made an investment in Wheels, an operator of a shared electric mobility platform designed to revolutionize dockless mobility with its compact e-bike.
Wheels was founded by brothers Joshua and Jonathan Viner, serial entrepreneurs with three prior ventures over the last decade. Wheels is a shared electric micromobility platform that connects dockless electric bicycles. The Wheels e-bike has large wheels and a low center of gravity, and will in an upcoming release include a patent-pending shareable and smart helmet system integrated directly into the bike. In addition to being more comfortable than a standup scooter, its modular design allows for easily swappable replacement parts, including replaceable batteries, to significantly improve unit economics and deliver a longer product life cycle.
“Our core mission is to bring forward inherently safer, more sustainable and more inclusive solutions that we believe will unlock micromobility to reach its full potential,” said Joshua Viner, CEO at Wheels, in a statement. “We recognized this same dedication in the team at TDK, and we look forward to engaging with them to continue to innovate on compelling micromobility solutions as a key competitive differentiator for us in the market.”
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“This is a great complement to our portfolio. Wheels is about moving people around and our first investment, Starship Technologies, is about moving things around,” said Nicolas Sauvage, Managing Director at TDK Ventures, in a statement. “With this inside view across the spectrum of the micromobility industry, we’ll be able to better identify new trends early, including changing regulations, so we can apply our learnings to create solutions in TDK’s roadmap that are intersecting with these emerging and meaningful new applications.”