The upstart: CLIP
Before there was CLIP, there was Som Ray biking to work in Brooklyn.
“It was awesome. It was healthy, felt good, but very soon, it became a chore,” he said. Ray would show up sweaty, out of breath and tired. But purchasing an e-bike was out of the question: it cost thousands of dollars, the bikes weighed a ton, and besides, he had just purchased a new bicycle. He knew there must be a better solution.
“Maybe I can just put something on this bike and make it electric?” he mused.
Ray, a mobility designer and CLIP’s chief executive officer, was inspired by other attempts to convert bikes into e-bikes, notably the Copenhagen Wheel. But these options were prohibitively expensive and needed to be professionally installed. He wanted to build something that could easily be attached and removed from a bicycle, no tools necessary.
Looking for inspiration, Ray and his brother-in-law, Clem de Alcala, now CLIP’s chief operating officer, studied the designs of French manufacturer VéloSoleX. The company’s SoleX bike, famously adopted by the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Steve McQueen, was created in post-war France. Marketed as a cross between a bike and a moped, the SoleX had a small motor mounted to the front wheel and could reach 20 MPH.
Ray and de Alcala had their reference point but needed to translate the SoleX into a modern product. After three prototypes across four years, the pair found their solution.
The result is a compact motor that latches onto the front wheel of almost any bike and provides a cheaper alternative to e-bikes. The motor is connected via Bluetooth to a button a rider attaches to the handlebars and activates a pedal assistant. CLIP’s motors start at $499, whereas e-bikes clock in at $1,100 on the low end. The electrical motor charges in an hour and can help riders reach up to 15 MPH, propelling them between 6-12 miles on a single charge.
CLIP has raised a total of $4.75 million across three seed rounds and employs 10 workers. The company has shipped 400 devices so far and is scaling manufacturing in India to reach a monthly production capacity of 500 units by the end of the year.
Deborah Diamond, who lives outside Seattle, is one of CLIP’s early adopters. She and her partner wanted to bike, but the hills on Vashon Island where they live presented a major challenge for the 74-year-old couple.
“We didn’t like how heavy the electric bikes were. We had tried out various ones, and they were too heavy for us to lift them up into a vehicle or onto the bike rack,” said Diamond. “[CLIP] seemed ideal. That we could get something that was portable, that we could put off and on the bike, and that would still give us the boost to be able to go up hills.”
Soon after receiving their CLIP, they began biking more regularly, starting with two miles a day, soon hitting three miles, then five, and so on. Diamond’s partner recently completed a 12-mile bike run just a few weeks ago. “We hadn’t biked for 50 years,” she added.
The reigning Goliath: Rad Power Bikes
Electric bicycle sales have soared nationwide over the past few years. According to the most recent date, over one million bikes were sold in 2022, compared to 325,000 e-bike sales in 2018.
Rad Power Bikes, based in Seattle, is at the forefront of the e-bike craze. Founded in 2007, the company has raised nearly $330 million in funding at a $1.65 billion valuation, according to Pitchbook, and employs over 400 people. The company offers 16 different e-bike models, ranging from $1,099 to $2,199.
How to conquer the giant
In 2018, Ray and de Alcala founded CLIP and set up shop inside Newlab, a startup incubator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Before raising a seed round, Ray built a “Mad Max kind of thing” that served as CLIP’s proof of concept.
Both remember trying out the first prototype and realizing the promise of what they were building.
“I was like, ‘shit, this works!’” recounted Ray after trying the prototype for the first time. “I called Clem, sent him the video, and he was very excited.”
De Alca recalls a ride in Prospect Park as the moment he knew they were onto something.
“I was passing this rider training [in] all spandex on a performance bike. And I passed this person on the incline in with this crazy prototype, without a sound,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s definitely a huge potential.’”
With a refined prototype in hand, the pair began reaching out to investors and centered their pitch on a low-cost mobility solution with environmental benefits.
Raising CLIP’s first seed round was tricky, Ray said. “Hardware is typically difficult to raise money for, especially if it’s a completely new product. There is always also this kind of hype around tech that software has to be a key component of it.”
But the pair pushed forward with the theory that investors and customers would follow if they could fine-tune the hardware at a low cost.
Sandiip Bhammer, founder and managing partner of Green Frontier Capital, was one of the first people to buy into Ray and de Alcala’s vision.
“When you start integrating mobility solutions, like what CLIP offers, into everyday life, it really takes away from your dependence on fossil fuels and is a significant step towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” he explained.
Bhammer went on to become one of the lead investors in CLIP’s first seed round and has a seat on the company’s board.
Within their first couple of years, the company built a list of 1,500 pre-orders, many of which they are still fulfilling as they bring in new orders. “People who are using our device, who understand what it’s for,’ said Ray, “They love it.”
The next challenge
The next step in the company’s expansion is developing a new product, dubbed the “CLIP Bolt,” for emerging economies.
“You cannot change the world. You may change behavior in Western countries, but in emerging economies, you need something different,” said de Alcala. Instead of it being easily installable and removable, the “CLIP Bolt” will be screwed onto the bike wheel and will include a swappable battery riders can access through a subscription model. De Alcala wants to sell the CLIP Bolt for under $100, significantly lower than the company’s standard $499 model.
“It’s a different business model and a different price point, different products, but the ambition of CLIP is to have a global impact on mobility,” added de Alcala.
Olivia Bensimon is a freelance journalist in New York City who reports on human-centered stories.
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This column has been updated to clarify Som Ray’s title. He was previously listed as CLIP’s chief operating officer.
Olivia Bensimon , 2024-05-16 18:03:03
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