De-cloaking today is a new startup from two of the founders of defunct food delivery company Take Eat Easy. Dubbed Cowboy, the company is building a new electronic bicycle that it claims will address issues that have historically stopped e-bikes from becoming a “fully fledged mobility solution”.
“We haven’t launched yet,” Cowboy co-founder Adrien Roose tells me. “We are still entirely focusing on product development. After six months of design, engineering and industrialisation, we now have a first fully functional prototype. We will keep iterating on the product in the coming months, with the objective to launch early Spring 2018”.
Specifically, the Cowboy bike aims to better previous e-bikes in terms of pricing, product design, and technology — with the broader mission to “improve urban mobility by increasing the popularity of electric bikes”.
Key features include what Roose says is an intuitive and automatic motor assistance, a removable semi-integrated “smart battery,” and an app to turn the bike on and off and support theft detection, including GPS tracking. In addition, Cowboy plans to offer remote troubleshooting and software updates.
The distribution model of Cowboy is a classic online play, too. The startup says it will sell the e-bike through direct channels, allowing for “disintermediated” pricing of €1,399.
“As a digital native vertical brand, we’ve developed our own technology, allowing us to control both product design and production cost. To develop a connection with our customers, and lower prices, we will only distribute our product through direct sales channel,” adds Roose.
Cowboy’s other founders are Karim Slaoui, who along with Roose previously co-founded Brussels and London-based Take East Easy, an early Deliveroo competitor, and Tanguy Goretti, who was previously co-founder and CEO of Djump, an early competitor to Uber Pop in Europe.
