Pre-seed £186k to expand London e-bike subscription fleet with 160 new bikes
This article covers GIN e-bikes, a startup, taking a pre-seed funding round of £186k from Toloka.vc to expand a subscription-led rental service in London and shift its business from hardware sales to recurring revenue. The funding will add 160 e-bikes to its PLUTO fleet and aims to support couriers and urban riders while testing a subscription model for micromobility growth.
GIN e-bikes has taken a pre-seed funding round of £186,000 from Toloka.vc to expand a subscription-led rental service in London and shift its business from hardware sales to recurring revenue. The money is structured as a two-year, asset-backed loan and will be used to add 160 e-bikes to the company’s PLUTO fleet as it targets 100 active subscribers within six months.
Why it matters
The deal highlights a practical example of a hardware maker moving to a service model to improve unit economics. For micromobility businesses, proving repeatable, cash-generative subscription revenue can make fleet financing and rapid expansion more viable than one-off bike sales. The structure of this deal — a secured, relatively short-term loan rather than straight equity — also reflects investor appetite for nearer-term returns and demonstrable cash flow in early-stage mobility ventures.
Inside the product
GIN’s PLUTO offering rents e-bikes on a monthly basis and bundles maintenance, accessories, and insurance. After a 12-month rental cycle, the company sells bikes on the secondary market, creating a cyclical capital model that recycles fleet value into new units.
Key unit-economics the company reports:
- Customer lifetime value for couriers: £2,455, which the company says is more than double the revenue from one-off bike sales.
- LTV to customer acquisition cost ratio: approximately 40.
- Payback period per bike: five to six months.
- Early pilot traction: 37 active subscribers, averaging about £158 revenue per bike per month. If GIN reaches 100 active users, it expects annual recurring revenue of roughly £200,000.
### Who's backing the round
Who are the investors?
The investor is Toloka.vc, which provided the latest £186,000 as a two-year loan at 12 percent per annum, secured against GIN’s e-bike fleet. Toloka.vc previously supported GIN with a £510,000 investment in 2025 that the company says funded early product development and market entry. Toloka.vc frames this follow-on as aligned with its focus on businesses that demonstrate strong unit economics, real cash flow, and a clear route to scale.
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Founder perspective
GIN e-bikes was founded in 2022 in the suburbs of London by Maryna Vlasenko and Rahul Pushp. The company began by producing hybrid electric bikes for long-distance commuting and has since pivoted to a service-led model aimed at couriers and urban riders. The move from product sales to subscriptions is presented as a deliberate strategy to increase revenue predictability and accelerate user growth in London.
The bigger picture
The funding sits at the intersection of two trends: the shift among mobility hardware companies toward subscription and fleet models, and investor preference for capital structures that mitigate early-stage dilution while securing tangible assets. London remains a competitive market for micromobility services, and firms that can demonstrate fast payback, managed maintenance, and a clear secondary market for assets have an easier case for additional fleet financing.
GIN plans to raise up to £1 million in 2026 to scale its fleet to 1,000 e-bikes and expand service infrastructure across the capital. If those plans and the PLUTO unit economics hold up, the approach could serve as a template for other UK startups looking to convert hardware into recurring revenue streams and to attract asset-backed growth capital.
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