The idea of combining bike gears with an electric drive motor is a very tempting one that promises a new wave of neat, low maintenance, easy to operate e-bikes and light electric vehicles in the not-too-distant future. It's also a tricky engineering and business challenge, and one that has just proved too much for Finnish firm Revonte, one of the pioneers of this tech, who have just filed for bankruptcy.
Revonte's innovative sounding combined mid-drive and auto-adjusting gearbox looked to be progressing apace after they were founded in 2018 and progress still seemed to be on the cards as late as March this year when they partnered with Pässilä Bicycles to unveil a titanium e-mtb prototype. In between times, they managed to raise $2.4m in venture capital funding and also got involved in joint projects with the likes of UK's EAV, the four-wheeled e-cargo specialists.
Alas, it seems, recent lack of funding has caught up with them, as they filed for bankruptcy at the end of September. They are now selling the rights to use the technology they have thus far developed.
Tech for sale
The recent case of Van Moof may be instructive. Like Revonte they pioneered ambitious and complex technology but despite going several steps further than Revonte and becoming a mainstream e-bike player, they were also forced into bankruptcy.
Could Revonte be 'rescued' as Van Moof finally were? Their intellectual property - ie the rights for another company to take on and develop their combined gearbox and motor - is up for sale.
On paper it sounds an attractive offer for a company with the right technical prowess. The Revonte system promises the hugely powerful and practical combination of a single mid-drive 200Nm torque motor (far more than even the most powerful motors on the market today) with a wide-range, stepless, automatically changing gearing system along the lines of the Enviolo hub.
Other recent developments may be in their favour. At this year’s Eurobike, Pinion unveiled their combined mid-drive motor and gear unit, the MGU. Encouragingly for Revonte, Pinion's MGU has already been taken up by respected brands such as Flyer and Tout Terrain.
Revonte offers stepless gearing and more torque than the MGU but is clearly not market ready. We'll try and keep you up to date on potential buyers who think they can take Revonte's technology to the next stage of development.
