ALD : acquires share capital in MaaS startup, Skipr

ALD is pleased to announce that it has acquired 17% share capital through a capital increase in Skipr, a Belgian Mobility as a Service (MaaS) startup, entering into a shareholder agreement alongside existing investors which include the Belgian bank Belfius and Lab Box, the startup studio of automobile distributor D'Ieteren. These new funds will enable parties to seize significant growth opportunities by combining consultancy services for mobility transformation with digital access to multimodal, flexible and sustainable mobility solutions for employees.

Increasing focus on CO2 emissions reduction, favorable legal and fiscal policies, advances in scalable technology, a growing sharing economy and the rise of digital lifestyles are influencing day-to-day mobility related behaviors. This creates the perfect opportunity to build new user-centered alternative mobility solutions which seamlessly combine efficient mobility for employees and budget management services for their employers.

Skipr provides an all-in-one solution to companies in Belgium and France to easily manage, plan, book and pay for corporate mobility through an app, a management platform and a payment card. Through this product, Skipr offers mobility budget management services for companies looking to provide flexible mobility budgets to their employees, thus enabling employees to exchange a benefit car for a sustainable and flexible mobility budget. Mobility activity and associated costs are monitored through a dedicated centralised management platform.

The agreement will allow Skipr's expertise to complement and enrich ALD Move, ALD Automotive's MaaS solution, which already provides MaaS consultancy support, a real time travel assistant app and access to ALD Automotive's broad range of mobility offerings in the Netherlands.

The complementarity of both companies, who share a common product vision in terms of functional features and international ambitions, is a strong asset which has driven the investment decision. The new partnership will create a combination of leading-edge technology with solid mobility expertise to successfully enable companies to transition towards more flexible, efficient and cost-effective sustainable mobility solutions.

Initial focus will be to develop in the French and Belgian markets and to capitalize on current experimentation in the Netherlands. Further expansion is envisaged in Europe from 2023 with implementation planned in all major European cities by 2025.

'Our vision at Skipr is to make sustainable mobility the default option for professionals. ALD's Move 2025 strategy, combined with the new fiscal levers made this partnership a natural move for us. Combining our technology with ALD's ambitions and network positions us ideally to have the European impact we ambition,' explains Mathieu de Lophem, CEO at Skipr.

'At ALD, we believe that mobility can be delivered in a smarter way through technology, partnerships and industry expertise,' confirms Tim Albertsen, CEO at ALD. 'By investing in MaaS solutions to create a market leading one-stop-shop offering for companies and employees, we are shaping the future of mobility. This strategic investment will allow us to accelerate the roll-out of our MaaS offering in line with our Move 2025 strategy and deliver mobility solutions to our clients that are efficient, flexible and sustainable.'

Read the PR