TOP STORIES 🔥

 🐎 Donkey Republic is Trotting Into Helsinki

Helsinki is one of Europe's most committed cycling cities. The public bike-share launched here in 2016 with 50 stations and 500 bikes; a decade later, it operates nearly 4,600 bikes across 460 stations in Helsinki and Espoo, generating over 2.5 million trips annually. That success story, however, is currently in limbo — and into that uncertainty, Donkey Republic has just launched 700 bikes.

A public service in transition

The new regional system was originally planned for launch in 2026. That target has now slipped to spring 2028, after the Markkinaoikeus — Finland's public procurement court — annulled the tender award decision on 25 November 2025. The sequence of events is worth detailing. Kaupunkiliikenne Oy — the public owned company managing the public transport in the Helsinki Region — first awarded the contract to KaupunkiPyörä Vantaa Oy (the current operator) on 23 April 2025. That decision was then reversed on 5 June, with Donkey Republic selected as the new winner. A competitor filed an appeal. The court ruled that the procurement framework was legally flawed — bidders had been asked to price ten years of monthly service fees with no guarantee that any municipality would actually place an order. The entire process was set aside.

Kaupunkiliikenne Oy has since revised its procurement documents and a new tender is targeted for launch in summer 2026, with the new regional system expected in spring 2028. In the meantime, the current service continues in Helsinki and Espoo, while Vantaa's city bike service has been suspended and is preliminarily unavailable during 2026–2028 due to budget cuts.

This context transforms how Donkey Republic's private launch should be read. The Danish operator was within reach of winning the public contract before the court intervened. It now launches 700 private bikes in the same city, in the same procurement gap, under the same regulatory uncertainty — and with an obvious interest in being visible, trusted, and operational when the next tender opens.

Donkey Republic and Kaakau

The launch was announced on 22 July 2026: 700 pedal bikes, deployed in partnership with Finnish operator Kaakau — a long-time partner of Donkey Republic in the country — unlockable via the Donkey Republic app with both pay-per-ride and day pass options. The first bikes are expected on Helsinki's streets by late July.

The framing in the official release is careful and confirms the company’s strategy for the procurement process. Donkey Republic explicitly positions the service as complementary to the HSL public system — not a competitor. Christian Bergmann Mølgaard, Regional Manager for the Nordics, described it as serving "visitors for sightseeing journeys and locals who want a bike effortlessly without committing to the public bike-sharing network." The choice to deploy mechanical pedal bikes rather than e-bikes is also telling — it avoids direct overlap with whatever HSL's next-generation system will offer, while keeping the cost structure light enough to operate commercially on a permit basis.

The strategic opportunity

Helsinki's public bike-share, despite its strong usage figures, is currently in a multi-year procurement gap — the current extended service has no long-term contract, Vantaa has no service at all, and the new regional system won't be operational until at least 2028. In that window, a private operator willing to take commercial risk without public subsidy can build brand recognition, user habit, and operational presence that will be hard to dislodge once the public system returns at full scale.

Donkey Republic already operates in over 50 cities across the Nordics, Benelux, and DACH markets, including the two largest public bike-share contracts in North Rhine-Westphalia. Helsinki is framed as a further step in the company's ambition to become "the most trusted shared mobility partner in Northern Europe." Whether that ambition eventually extends to bidding for the new Helsinki regional public system — where Donkey Republic would compete against Inurba, Lyft Urban Solutions, and others — remains unannounced. But the logic is not hard to read.

Helsinki is a high-cycling city where the public system is well-embedded in daily life. The honest question is whether 700 private bikes can find meaningful ridership alongside 4,600 public ones, even in a transition period. Copenhagen's experience — where Donkey Republic operates alongside Dott in a city where almost everyone already owns a bike — suggests the market exists, but is structurally narrower than most. Helsinki, with long winters, a short operating season, and a culturally strong cycling baseline, will test whether the private complement model works in a truly Nordic context.

🌪️ Voi Wins Nantes, Who Walks Into a Political Storm

Nantes Métropole just handed one of France's most watched shared mobility contracts to Voi — and the backlash started almost immediately. The Swedish operator beat Pony by a margin of 3.5 points out of 500 to become the city's new e-bike provider. What followed says something important about where the "made in Europe" debate in shared mobility is heading.

From Bicloo to free-floating: a structural shift

Bicloo, Nantes' iconic station-based bike-share operated by JCDecaux since 2008, closes in January 2027. After 18 years and 127 stations, the city has made a deliberate choice to switch models: no more docking infrastructure, no more street furniture revenue model, and no more mechanical bikes, and more importantly, a fully private service. The new service will be entirely e-bike and free-floating — 2,400 electric bikes across 658 virtual stations covering all 24 municipalities of the métropole, giving 96% of residents access within 500 metres. Sixty e-scooters complete the offer. The first vehicles will arrive between October and December 2026, fully integrated into the Naolib public transport ecosystem.

The procurement process was conducted as an RFP, covering around twenty evaluation criteria weighted across quality, service coverage, pricing, and environmental and social responsibility. Voi emerged first. Pony — the French challenger, founded in Bordeaux, with a local assembly in Loire-Atlantique — came second.

3.5 points and a political storm

The opposition group "Un Nouveau Souffle pour Nantes" was quick to challenge the result. Their argument: Nantes Métropole had chosen "a company whose bikes and components are produced and assembled in China, rejecting a competing offer largely based on French and European production, with assembly carried out in Loire-Atlantique." They characterised the decision as "a political, economic and environmental error" and have called for a vote against ratification at the Conseil Métropolitain on 2 October 2026. Their estimate: €8 million in local economic activity lost to an Asian supply chain.

Pony, which manufactures its bikes at the Manufacture Française du Cycle, had scored slightly higher on the CSR and environmental responsibility criterion. The opposition argues that in a tender explicitly built around sustainability, awarding the contract to an operator with a Chinese-manufactured fleet contradicts the stated values of the métropole.

The métropole's response

Simon Citeau, 13th Vice-President of Nantes Métropole in charge of mobility, pushed back firmly. "On the caricature of Made in France versus Made in China, there are a lot of attacks that are false on this dossier," he said. His key point: no candidate in the tender manufactures bike frames in France — including Pony. "Both top-ranked operators manufacture their frames abroad and all their scooters in Asia." He also noted that Voi has committed to doubling the share of its fleet manufactured in France, and to reconditioning batteries on French soil.

On the legal dimension, Citeau was equally blunt: modifying criteria or scoring after the analysis is complete "is illegal and totally inequitable." The process followed its rules; Voi won on the overall multi-criteria assessment, delivering a broader territorial footprint and a fairer pricing structure, including a solidarity tariff for lower-income users.

A European Problematic

The Nantes controversy is not unique. As European procurement rules prevent explicit "buy local" preferences, cities that want to favour local or European industry must embed those criteria at the design stage of a tender — not after results emerge. The Nantes case illustrates the tension between procurement law, which demands objectivity, and political ambition, which increasingly wants shared mobility to be a vector for local economic reindustrialisation.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Beryl
Launch in Brighton & Hove (GB) 🛴

Bolt
Launch in …

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TENDER WATCH 👀

🟢 Open

 Geneva (CH) | 🚲
◾️2-year contract to start in June 2027 (x3 possible one-year extensions)
◾️1,500 bikes, no physical stations

Université Paris-Saclay (FR) | 🚲
◾️Dockless service with 7 virtual hubs
◾️1-year contract (x3 possible one-year extensions)

🔴 Closed

Blois (FR) | 🛴
◾️Bird licence has been expanded for 4 years
◾️180 scooters will be available

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CITY UPDATES 🌐

Belfort (FR) | The multimodal app Optymo is off as the supplier declares bankruptcy.

Nantes (FR) | The bike-share licence award to Voi launches a political battle over bike production location.

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INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Bird launches its benefits program Business+.

Dott partners with ATAC and Metrebus to offer integrated rides in Rome (IT).

Forest launches a new campaign with Merrell in London (GB).

pony partners with Wimoov, to support people with difficult access to mobility in France (FR).

Qick upgrades its scooter fleet in Linköping (SE) with the Navee V2 Pro.

Voi reveals strong financial results for Q2 2026 and denies plans for IPO.

Voi offers specific pricing during the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow (GB).

Fleetser becomes Dott's exclusive partner for the second-hand market.