MTS Urent has acquired Eleven, a Belarusian developer of electric scooters and software. According to experts, the deal amounted to between 600 and 800 million rubles, which indicates its high investment attractiveness.
Eleven will form the basis of a center that will develop electric scooters and other types of shared transport. The center will also be responsible for developing software and charging infrastructure.
Eleven employees will continue to work in the merged company. A new scooter model is planned to be presented in 2025, and production will be localized in Russia.
The company does not disclose information about the value of the transaction. Sergey Sobolev, investment director of the SK Capital fund, believes that the value of the entire Eleven business is between 6 and 8 million dollars (600–800 million rubles).
Sergey Sobolev believes that this investment is correct and promising, since Moscow supports the development of local production and is considering providing benefits for local manufacturers in the form of additional quotas for the use of scooters.
According to Sobolev, the Eleven team remains one of the most competent in the field of research and development.
Earlier in Russia, an autopilot for electric scooters was created. It was developed by students of the Ural Federal University and schoolchildren from the Sverdlovsk region. The system has a built-in artificial intelligence that recognizes objects and determines the distance to them. When obstacles are detected in the path, the autopilot automatically reduces the speed of the electric scooter to 5 km/h.