10.2020: Bregal Unternehmerkapital takes a stake in woom, the innovative manufacturer of kid’s bicycles. In addition to the two founders and managing directors, who still hold the majority in the company, Bregal joins the company with several private co-investors such as Runtastic founder Florian Gschwandtner. They all share a common understanding of sustainability, responsibility and enjoyment of the product.
woom was created in 2013 in a garage in Vienna, when cycling fans Christian Bezdeka and Marcus Ihlenfeld started developing a kid’s bike that should make learning to ride a bike as easy as possible. Today woom employs around 100 people at its headquarters in Klosterneuburg / Austria and produces more than 200,000 kid’s bikes annually. The range includes innovative running bikes and bicycles that grow with the kid and make learning to cycle easy, safe and intuitive. In the meantime, off-road bikes and e-mountain bikes as well as well thought-out accessories have also become an essential part of the product portfolio.
With this year’s growth of 60 percent, the high demand for woom bikes exceeds supply: In order to be able to handle the volume, production is to be set up in Europe in addition to the existing locations in Asia from December 2020. Due to the geographical location of the planned new production site, production and demand are moving closer together in line with woom’s sustainability strategy. Areas such as digitization, e-commerce, community building and organizational development are also to be further strengthened in order to substantially support woom’s rapid growth.