Mobike, one of two fast-emerging on-demand bike rental services, has landed $600 million in new funding as it seeks to expand its business outside of China.
Bike rentals are shaping up to be the first global tech industry that was born in China. The principle is simple: bikes are fitted with GPS trackers which allows them to be picked up from and left anywhere using an app. With companies deploying thousands, and offering incentives to leave them in certain areas, the idea is that there should be enough supply in all parts of the city to enable rides at any place and at any time.
Mobike said it operates more than five million bikes, and its 100 million registered users take 25 million trips per day at peak times. The service is currently present in 100 cities — which was its expansion target for this year. Most of those are in China, but it has expanded to Singapore and it just announced plans to launch in Manchester, UK, its first city in Europe, by the end of this month. That’s just the beginning.
“We will accelerate the pace of global expansion and our new target is to be…