While the future of electric scooters, offered by companies like Lime and Bird, remains uncertain in Chicago, a local startup is bringing its scooter service to the city by targeting the real estate industry.
Ridy, founded in 2019 by Guru Medasani, operates an electric scooter service designed to let riders get around town more easily. But instead of directly targeting riders, Ridy targets apartment and office building managers, who pay the company for a set of its scooters to keep on their property and then provide the scooters to tenants as a free amenity.
The model allows Ridy to bypass getting operational approval from local governments, Medasani said, and cuts out the need to distribute, collect and charge scooters. Ridy scooters live in a charging dock at their respective buildings, and when riders take a scooter, they just have to bring it back before it runs out of battery.
“Our goal is to make living and working communities happier, healthier and connected, and one of the ways we contribute to that goal is by providing sustainable transportation that they can always rely on to move around happily and for no cost,” said Medasani, who has a background in software engineering.
Riders unlock scooters at charging docks using Ridy’s app and entering a private fleet code provided by their building manager. The average fleet at each building includes about eight scooters, Medasani said.
The scooters have a battery life that can carry riders up to 30 miles, and they come equipped with locks so riders can make multiple stops along their journey and secure the scooter to a bike rack or other fixed object. Ridy buys its scooters from a manufacturer but designs and builds its own charging docks in Chicago, Medasani said.
Ridy scooters can be found at five residential and commercial properties, such as north + vine apartments in Old Town and Milieu apartments on the Near West Side. Besides Chicago, Ridy is operating in markets in California, Texas and Georgia.
Medasani says Ridy is gearing up to offer electric bikes in addition to scooters, targeting corporations with sprawling campuses where there's a need for quicker methods to get from point A to point B.
Ridy is expanding in Chicago at a time when the city has been experimenting with e-scooters over the last couple years. The city has hosted two pilots that companies like Bird, Lime and Spin participated in.
The second pilot, which ended in December, saw lower ridership compared to the first pilot the year prior, likely because of changing commuter patterns amid the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time of the pilot’s conclusion, the Chicago Department of Transportation and Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection did not say whether they had plans for a permanent e-scooter presence in the city.
