Land Energy has largely completed the manufacturing floor expansion it needs to scale up production of its electric bikes — the first application of the startup's swappable battery technology.
Manufacturing Works, the non-profit organization that helps Northeast Ohio manufacturers, plans to hold a mixer in the new space on June 8, said Scott Colosimo, founder and CEO of the e-mobility startup in Cleveland's Gordon Square neighborhood.
The expansion "is a big step forward for us because we've had a lot of demand, and we just haven't been able to keep up with it," Colosimo said about his company's former limited manufacturing space.
Land Energy designs swappable batteries and the software that drives them. It also designs products that use these batteries, starting with the District, an e-bike that can be used as a bike, moped or motorcycle, depending on the ride mode selected.
The additional space and hardware "is going to allow us to quickly scale to over a hundred units a month," said Colosimo, a serial entrepreneur who sold his previous company, Cleveland CycleWerks, to go all in on his electric venture in 2020.
"We're focused on super lean production, and that's really important to us" because it is expected to keep his company nimble and light on equipment, Colosimo said.
Now that Land Energy has more manufacturing space, it is hiring workers to engineer and assemble its e-bikes.
But producing more e-bikes also is "dependent on cash," he said. "We've got plenty of demand, but we need to bring in more cash to be able to meet all that demand."
As a result, Land Energy recently began a $50 million fundraising round, he said.
