French e-bike startup Angell goes bankrupt

AngelA French Smart Electric Bike Startup has announced in an email that the company has filed for bankruptcy and is approaching a court to seek liquidation.

“It’s over for Angell,” he said. Company co-founder and CEO Marc Simoncini on Instagram. (He was also a judge on the French version of “Shark Tank”. “A hardware problem put an end to the adventure, despite all our efforts and the incredible work of all our staff.”

First of all Established in 2019Angell set out to create an electric bike with several smart and connected features. The original bike packed a small color touchscreen in the middle of the handlebars to display relevant information and provide turn-by-turn directions. It can also connect to your phone using Bluetooth.

With an integrated lock and alarm system and its built-in GPS chip and cellular modem, it competed with other European Smart Bike manufacturers such as Angell bike, cowboy and van mids. It should also be noted that the van yard itself is necessary File for bankruptcy In 2023 in the Netherlands. A new owner is working now headless brand.

With its all-in-one package, Angell suffered from reliability issues. In an email to customers, the company explained that its latest problem with its first-generation bike was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“The fragility of the bicycle frame represents a risk of breakage,” the company wrote. “He realizes that there is a defect related to the manufacturing process of the frames, more precisely for the welding of the tubes.”

Angell does not manufacture its own bikes. There is instead partner with seball clothes, the French Industrial Company behind Krups, Moulinex, Rowenta and Tefal, excludes the production process. Similarly, it worked with a third-party design company, Kickmaker.

In the rest of the email, Angell tries to shift the blame for these severe design flaws onto these two partners. However, Angell is financially responsible for these faulty bikes because it is the company that sells these bikes. It can either ride 7,000 bikes or turn customers away.

But the company seems too expensive for the startup because the company opted for the bankruptcy process. There will be other cases to determine who is responsible for these production problems between Mengell, SEB and Kickmaker.

When it comes to Angell bike owners, the people who owned the first generation bike are now left with a bike that is not safe to ride. Customers with recent angell bikes will also be affected as the company may shut down its servers at a moment’s notice. Let’s hope that it is not going to affect the electrical assistance and the smart lock.