Wheelys Inc, a Swedish Y Combinator startup operating bike cafes in 50 countries, has closed a $2.5 million seed round.
Wheelys Café tries to lower the barrier to entry into cafe business – while franchising Starbucks or any other major brands could cost hundreds of thousands, Wheelys sells “a high-tech mobile café” for a few thousand dollars.
It has used crowdfunding to kickstart its global ambitions, raising more than $300,000 last year on Indiegogo.
Seed round investors included Paul Buchheit (the creator of Gmail), Othman Laraki (Color Genomics), Jared Friedman (Founder of Scribd), and Justin Waldron (co-founder of Zynga).