Meredot is a missing element in the electric transport infrastructure, without which its further development is impossible.
Electric transport is an inevitable future, and in 10-15 years every second car will already be electric. At the same time, in addition to conventional types of transport (trains, cars and buses), alternative, personal transport is developing – electric bicycles, electric motorcycles, electric scooters, etc. Counterintuitively, this future is impossible if charging stations continue to be the same as they are now. Even extra-power stations wont solve the problem.
We have developed a wireless technology for transmitting electricity, with the ability to charge objects at a distance of 30 cm with an efficiency of 90-95%.
The technology is scalable and can be applied simultaneously to devices of different sizes or types – scooters, bicycles, cars, drones.
We created the first wireless charging station for electric scooters – the fastest growing segment in the transportation industry today. Follow the link to see how everything works: https://youtu.be/_p1E8nvNq80
ABOUT US
Meredot was founded in 2019 by Roman Bysko. With experience in the development and implementation of more than 15 IoT projects in the field of smart home & hospitality for Schneider Electric, EMT Controls and Leviton, Roman has come to a clear goal – to make life without wires possible.
Our 10-member team of researchers, scientists, engineers and mentors with backgrounds at Qualcomm, HyperLoop and BlackNova have focused on developing wireless charging technology for a wide range of devices.
We believe the technology we have developed can become the standard for all types of devices with unrivaled efficiency and user friendliness.
PROBLEM
- Up to 60% of operators expenses are the costs of assembling, transporting, recharging and returning scooters to the street (McKinsey). In pursuit of market share, companies like Lime, Bird, VOI were willing to sacrifice efficiency for growth. In a competitive environment, and especially in a crisis period, companies are already beginning to look for alternatives to existing business processes.
- In addition to inefficient unit economics, scooter distribution in cities is constrained by increasingly stringent city halls/municipalities rules on how they should be parked and organized.
- The car-sharing segment on electric transport is also impossible if the charging is wired.
SOLUTION
Meredot provides a mission-critical and missing piece of infrastructure – the wireless charging dock. The station is capable of charging electric vehicles at an industrial level from 80 W to 10 kW.
For our technology, it is possible to install the station on top or underground while maintaining a high level of efficiency.
The station is compatible with the main types of electric vehicles and supports the fast charging mode (full charging of the scooter in 2 hours).
The station is protected from vandalism and does not require labor-intensive maintenance, unlike wired counterparts.
The wireless charging station provides complete autonomy for the business process of renting a scooter / comprehensively solves the problems of micromobility companies
OPERATIONAL CONCEPT
As soon as the station detects the device above the parking area, the system recognizes the type, name and power consumption of the scooter and authorizes it in the system. And only after authorization, the station sends power to the scooters receiving device.
COMPETITION
Competitors are developing wired or contact charging stations – Sfitwmile, Knot, Samocat, Duckt, Kuhmute. Contact or wired solutions are short-lived, ineffective and take up a lot of urban space. Contacts are oxidized, wires are vandalized, and customers often simply do not want to put the scooter on charge (not convenient, do not want to get dirty or contact with electric wires) (see photo)
Meredot provides fully autonomous and wireless charging. After the ride, just park the scooter at the charging station and the charging process will start automatically. There are no cables, which means that there is no chance of vandalism, short failures, and there are no contacts, that oxidize and fail to function.
MARKET
Today, electric scooters have become a mass phenomenon on the streets of large European cities, a similar situation was observed a year earlier in US cities.
"Expected micromobility market size ~ $ 400 billion by 2030"
- McKinsey
The projected charging market by 2030 is estimated at $ 60 billion (20% of the total market).
BUSINESS MODEL
Our clients are scooter operators and system integrators. Together with them, we develop a line of chargers for micromobility vehicles – scooters, motor bicycles, bicycles and larger vehicles including cars.
The core of our business model is battery charging, so we can count on more and more secure income. For a city with 1,000 scooters, we can get up to $ 800,000/year (Berlin – 9,000 scooters, Tel Aviv – 11,000 scooters).
PRICE POLICY
We held preliminary negotiations with potential clients (Enel X (Italy), Bolt (Estonia), DTEK (Ukraine), Lime and Helbiz) and prepared a financial model. Given the companys focus on micromobility sectors, we came up with a preliminary pricing:
- 25 EUR – the price of a complete battery recharge
- 2,000 EUR – the cost of the charging station
- 60 EUR – the cost of the station scooter receiver
PARTNERS
In March 2020, we partnered with Power Mobility, a leader in the digital transformation of Israel charging infrastructure. Power Mobility is partnering with major scooter manufacturers, scooter operators and municipalities to build infrastructure for charging mobile devices. In 2020, a tender will be held in Tel Aviv to change scooter operators, operators will invest in the infrastructure of charging stations (200 units), and Power Mobility will be a solution provider for operators – Lime, Bird and TIER. By this time, Meredots task is to release the final version of the product and prepare for production.
TEAM
The founders of Meredot have experience in developing commercial projects and have expertise in the development of high-load technology projects.
Roman Bysko, co-founder and CEO of Meredot with more than 10 years of experience in consumer electronics and information technology product development, has patented a number of innovations and published several articles in electronic and scientific publications. Prior to founding Meredot, Roman was the Director of Innovation, Research and Development Department at Black Nova, where he developed products for smart home and hotel automation. Working closely with Schneider Electric, Roman has achieved a number of top results in this industry and made Black Nova the dominant player on the market.
Roman Ershov, co-founder and CTO of Meredot, has a Masters Degree at the Technological University of Electronics and Computer Systems, and is the author of about 15 publications indexed by IEEE Scopus. During his career, Roman has transformed new scientific ideas into prototypes and products, participated in transferring knowledge from university laboratories to industrial production with several SMEs, and provided technological advice to the military.
Our biggest advantage is that we are a team of engineers and scientists supported by mentors with experience in international corporations – Qualcomm, HyperLoop and BlackNova. The project engineers have skills in PCB design, software development, mechanical assemblies design, and system design.
INVESTMENTS
In March 2019, Meredot closed the angel funding stage and received support from CYFRD Frontech Investments. CYFRD is an investment company focused on new technologies and business models of the future.
In October 2019, Meredot received the European Horizon 2020 grant for innovation in the development of wireless power transmission technology.
In February 2020, the Meredot project completed the Overkill VC acceleration program and closed the pre-seed funding stage. Overkill VC is a three-month support from experienced mentors from Northern Europe and strategic partners of the foundation.
Round information
As a result of the program, Overkill VC made an offer to invest and become the lead investor of the seed funding stage. Most of the funds will be spent on three categories:
- Pilot projects. Considering that we do not expect 100% prepayment from the company, we need funds to manufacture stations and receivers. We expect that we will have 2-3 pilot projects in Israel / Latvia / Poland. This should cover spare electronic components, printed circuit boards from China, assembling and shipping costs.
- R&D. The beta version of the wireless charging station was produced by RnD department in bootstrap mode. Therefore, it is necessary now to expand and strengthen RnD to cover the development of software for the infrastructure of charging stations and the creation of solutions for other types of electric transport.
- EU product certification and business development (relationships with leading scooter providers and city authorities), administrative costs and patenting.
Roadmap
- 10/10/2019 – Completion of the European Grant Program Horizon 2020 Phase 1
- 02/15/2020 – Completion of the European Overkill VC accelerator and release of the wireless charging station for electric scooters
- 02/20/2020 – First demo show at TechChill conference
- 01/05/2021 – Installation of 40 charging stations in Riga / Tallinn / Warsaw
- 01/05/2021 – Installation of 200 charging stations in Tel Aviv with Lime, Bird and Power Mobility
- 04/01/2021 – Release of the wireless charging station for e-bikes and e-scooters
- 08/05/2021 – Series A to scale to Asia
