TIER Mobility

Overview
TIER Mobility was a Berlin shared-micromobility operator (e-scooters, e-mopeds, e-bikes) founded in 2018 by Lawrence Leuschner, Julian Blessin and Matthias Laug. It reached a reported USD 2 billion valuation in an October 2021 Series D co-led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Mubadala Capital. After buying the Leipzig operator nextbike in November 2021 it served more than 400 cities. TIER merged with Amsterdam-based Dott in March 2024, and the group consolidated onto one brand, Dott, retiring the TIER brand by spring 2025.

Why this entity matters
TIER is the most complete European case study of a full venture cycle in a hardware-intensive, permit-dependent category. Between 2018 and 2022 it raised a reported USD 660 million in equity and debt, absorbed the bike-sharing operator nextbike, and used SoftBank capital to buy Ford's US scooter business Spin; when capital repriced, a business dependent on cheap funding, dense fleets and renewable city permits reversed nearly all of those decisions inside eighteen months. Regulatory dependency shaped the model throughout: Germany legalised rented e-scooters only when the Elektrokleinstfahrzeuge-Verordnung took effect on 15 June 2019, and city access is allocated by municipal tender, so the unit of competition is a permit rather than a customer. The ending is instructive too: merging with a smaller rival, adopting its brand and its chief executive, then retiring its own larger name is what consolidation looks like in European mobility.

Company history and product
TIER was founded in Berlin in 2018 by Lawrence Leuschner, previously founder of the re-commerce business ReBuy, with Julian Blessin and Matthias Laug. It competed for municipal tenders rather than deploying without permission, and built swappable-battery technology to cut the collection-and-recharge costs that dominate shared-micromobility operating expense.

The funding ladder was steep: about EUR 2 million in October 2018 with Speedinvest and Point Nine Capital; a USD 60 million Series B first tranche in late 2019, later extended past USD 100 million; and a USD 250 million Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 on 10 November 2020, when TIER said it was profitable and ran about 60,000 e-scooters across 80 cities in ten countries. Also in 2020 it bought the London charging-hardware startup Pushme and launched a user-swappable-battery scooter, having reached 70 cities.

In October 2021 TIER closed a USD 200 million Series D co-led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Mubadala Capital, at a reported USD 2 billion valuation. In November 2021 it acquired 100 percent of nextbike, a Leipzig operator then running roughly 200 cities across 17 countries, and in March 2022 bought Spin from Ford Motor Company.

The reversal began in August 2022 with about 180 roles cut, roughly 16 percent of staff, followed by about 7 percent in January 2023 and about 22 percent in late 2023. In September 2023 TIER sold Spin to Bird Global for USD 19 million, paid as USD 10 million cash plus a vendor take-back and a holdback. The merger with Dott, announced in January 2024 and supported by a EUR 60 million investment, closed in March 2024, creating a group with roughly EUR 250 million in combined revenue; from 1 October 2024 the group ran one Dott brand across 427 cities in 21 countries with 250,000 vehicles, migrating remaining cities by early 2025.

Role in the DACH startup and technology ecosystem
TIER was for several years the flagship of Berlin's mobility-technology cluster and one of the few German companies to reach a multi-billion-dollar private valuation without a software-only model. Its home market existed only because of a regulation: the Elektrokleinstfahrzeuge-Verordnung, in force from 15 June 2019, created a legal class of electric micro-vehicles with a design speed between 6 and 20 km/h, removed the driving-licence requirement, set a minimum age of 14 and confined riders to cycle paths or the carriageway; a late-2025 amendment adds indicator and independent-braking rules from 2027. TIER was among the largest DACH recipients of SoftBank Vision Fund capital, so its trajectory is the standard German reference for what happens when global growth capital enters a European regulated-mobility market. Through nextbike, a Leipzig company embedded in German public-transport tenders, it became a direct counterparty to hundreds of German, Austrian and Swiss municipalities, and that relationship survived the contraction: the business still serves DACH cities under the Dott brand.

Selected relationships and affiliations
Founders: Lawrence Leuschner, Julian Blessin and Matthias Laug; Laug, chief technology officer, left in early 2023. Early investors: Speedinvest and Point Nine Capital from the October 2018 round, joined at Series B by AXA Germany, Mubadala Capital and Goodwater Capital. Series C lead: SoftBank Vision Fund 2, November 2020. Series D leads: SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Mubadala Capital, with RTP Global, Novator, White Star Capital, Northzone, Speedinvest, M&G Investments and Mountain Partners. Acquisitions: Pushme (2020), nextbike (2021) and Spin from Ford Motor Company (2022); divestment: Spin to Bird Global (2023). Merger counterparty: Dott, co-founded by Henri Moissinac and Maxim Romain; at closing Moissinac became chief executive and Leuschner chairman, and at the October 2024 rebrand Moissinac led TIER-Dott with Romain as president.

Startuprad.io relevance
TIER sits in Startuprad.io's energy, mobility and infrastructure cluster, where it is the reference case for hardware-heavy, permit-dependent European scaling. Four tagged posts cover the company: the Energy, Mobility and Infrastructure pillar guide for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the green-economy analysis of the German startup scene, and two monthly DACH news editions, including January 2024, the month the Dott merger was announced. The record links SoftBank Vision Fund 2, nextbike and Dott, and is kept as corporate history because the TIER name has been retired.

Public source context
Merger and brand migration: Dott https://ridedott.com/press-release/tier-dott-merger/ and https://ridedott.com/press-release/tier-becomes-dott/ . Series D and valuation: Tech.eu https://tech.eu/2021/10/25/tier-raises-200-million-in-series-d-round-at-2-billion-valuation/ . Spin purchase and sale: CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/02/ford-sells-e-scooter-division-spin-to-softbank-backed-tier-mobility.html and TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/19/bird-acquires-spin-scooters-from-tier-for-19m/ . German micromobility regulation: the consolidated eKFV text at https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ekfv/BJNR075610019.html . Headcount reductions: Sifted https://sifted.eu/articles/micromobility-giant-tier-layoffs . Also used: TechCrunch and electrive.com (10 November 2020) for the Series C, the profitability statement and the fleet figures; Tech.eu (15 November 2021) for nextbike; EU-Startups (25 August 2020) for Pushme.

Startuprad.io coverage of TIER Mobility

TIER Mobility appears in the following Startuprad.io interviews, analysis and long-form profiles.

Energy, Mobility & Infrastructure Startups Guide: Germany, Austria & Switzerland
Published: 10 March 2026
Last updated: 04 August 2026
Coverage type: Pillar Profile
https://www.startuprad.io/post/energy-mobility-and-infrastructure-innovation-in-germany-austria-and-switzerland

DACH Startup News January 2024: Founders, Funding and Ecosystem Updates
Published: 24 January 2024
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: News
https://www.startuprad.io/post/this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-january-2024

How Germany's Startup Scene is Shaping the Future of the Green Economy
Published: 28 October 2024
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/how-germany-s-startup-scene-is-shaping-the-future-of-the-green-economy

Startup News Germany (and GSA) — May 2023
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: News
https://www.startuprad.io/post/this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-may-2023-episode-385

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Canonical record: https://www.startuprad.io/entities/tier-mobility