Forest's £40m Round Ties E-Bike Maker to Operator

Inside the £40m round

The £40m figure comprises two distinct pools of capital, according to the company's announcement.

On the equity side, £17m in fresh funding has come from OKAI, B8 Venture Partners, Fen Ventures, Güil Mobility Ventures and other unnamed backers. That builds on £3m in equity announced in a prior tranche, bringing total equity raised in the Series B to £20m.

The remaining £20m sits in an asset-backed lending facility provided by Fintex Capital. The specialist lender had already extended a £10m facility; the new round adds a further £10m, doubling the total available debt finance.

The blended structure is deliberate. Jose Eluchans, CFO of Forest and a member of its founding team, pointed to capital efficiency as a guiding principle, as first reported by BusinessCloud.

"We've built one of the largest e-bike platforms in Europe by maintaining a disciplined focus on capital efficiency and sustainable operations. This latest investment reflects our shareholders' confidence in our ability to scale responsibly while delivering real value to London."

Asset-backed finance allows Forest to fund fleet expansion, including the 2,600 parking bays it has already installed, without diluting equity holders at the same rate a purely equity-funded model would require. For an asset-heavy business where each bike is a depreciating physical unit, the approach mirrors financing structures common in vehicle leasing and aviation.

Why a manufacturer took a stake

The most distinctive element of the round is OKAI's decision to move from pure supplier to minority shareholder. Jiangtao Lu, CEO of OKAI, described the arrangement as making the two firms "collaborators, investors and co-creators," according to the company's statement.

The strategic logic runs in both directions. For Forest, the stake gives it what the company says is direct input into the design and build of its fleet, effectively embedding operational feedback from London's streets into the manufacturing process. For OKAI, the equity position ties its commercial fortunes more tightly to fleet utilisation and longevity rather than simply to unit sales.

That alignment matters in micromobility, where vehicle durability is a persistent pain point. Shared e-bikes endure far harsher treatment than privately owned ones; vandalism, weather exposure and high-frequency use compress asset life. A manufacturer with a financial interest in the operator's margins has a stronger incentive to engineer for durability rather than volume.

The model has parallels outside micromobility. Engine makers have long taken stakes in airlines, and battery suppliers have invested in electric vehicle manufacturers. But Forest and OKAI describe the arrangement as a first in the shared e-bike sector.

Single-city model versus geographic sprawl

Forest's decision to remain a London-only operator sets it apart from competitors such as Lime and Dott, both of which run multi-city, multi-country networks. The company now claims 1.5 million users, 2 million rides per month across 18 London boroughs, and 100 per cent year-on-year user growth, according to its own figures.

Eluchans framed the single-city focus as an operational advantage. The company says every Forest e-bike should generate more trips than any other shared bike on the street, describing utilisation as a measure of whether the business justifies its use of public space.

The approach concentrates capital expenditure, maintenance logistics and regulatory relationships in one geography. It also means the company does not face the fragmented licensing regimes and varying local rules that multi-city operators must navigate. London's shared e-bike market is described by Forest as the largest globally, which gives a single-city strategy a larger addressable market than it might have in smaller capitals.

Forest also differentiates on sustainability grounds, stating it is the only operator to power all its e-bikes and service vehicles with zero-emissions energy. The company says it has provided 110 million free cycling minutes to Londoners since 2021 through a scheme offering up to 30 free minutes per user per day.

What borough tender wins mean for scale

In the absence of a national regulatory framework for shared micromobility, London's borough-level tender process functions as the primary route to market. Each borough sets its own terms for how many operators can deploy bikes, where parking infrastructure must be placed, and what service levels are expected.

Forest recently won sole-operator status in Richmond, according to the company, a tender outcome that gives it exclusive access to the borough. The company says the cumulative effect of its tender wins means it now operates the largest continuous operating area of any shared e-bike provider in London.

These tender wins create a form of competitive moat. Once a borough awards a contract, the winning operator can invest in parking bays, local partnerships and rider density without fear of a rival flooding the same streets with competing vehicles. For Forest, the fresh capital is earmarked in part for further cycling infrastructure investment and technology development aimed at improving parking compliance and safety.

The borough-by-borough model also shapes the competitive landscape in ways that favour operators willing to invest in local government relationships. National-level e-scooter regulation remains unresolved in the UK, but e-bikes operate under existing cycling law, giving operators like Forest regulatory clarity that e-scooter firms lack.

For operators and board members in adjacent urban services, Forest's funding architecture, blending venture equity, a strategic supplier stake and asset-backed lending, offers a template for capital-efficient scaling in asset-heavy businesses where geographic focus can substitute for geographic breadth.