How Bikes Are at the Forefront of Future Urban Mobility with Mikko Ampuja, Vapaus

E-bike sales outpaced EVs and hybrid cars in both 2021 and 2022. In fact, research shows that by 2030, E-Bike sales are expected to 3x, outpacing even the rapid growth of passenger cars! There is a Bike Revolution taking place across the world and it is not only reshaping personal commuting but also freight and last-mile delivery services.

In today's episode of Things Have Changed Podcast, we dive into the world of urban mobility with Mikko Ampuja, the founder and former CEO of Vapaus, a Helsinki-based startup reshaping the way we think about city commuting. Miko brings a unique blend of personal experience and industry expertise, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, sustainability, and urban planning.

Miko delves into the evolving bicycle industry across Europe, particularly in cycling-friendly cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, highlighting how innovations in cycling are not just about transportation, but also about fostering healthier, more sustainable cities. 

Join us on Things Have Changed Podcast as we explore how Vapaus is leading the global movement, with their unique approach to making cycling an accessible and attractive option for commuters.

Transcript

Jed Tabernero: 0:01

In the busing city centers, where the hum of engines often drowns out the morning, Birdsong. A quiet revolution is taking shape.

Mikko Ampuja: 0:10

I used to work in the city center of Helsinki. Then as a young professional, I got myself a car but then the reality of actually, driving in Helsinki was terrible.

Jed Tabernero: 0:21

Think about your daily commute. The stop and go traffic. The endless search for parking. It's a routine, many of us know too well.

Mikko Ampuja: 0:30

I used to take my car and then drive it to my office. I. Realized that, Hey, I'm actually sitting in the traffic lights constantly. Then trying to figure out where to actually park my car. One month, I actually, I think I got something like three or four parking tickets in two weeks. Hey, this doesn't make any sense.

Jed Tabernero: 0:47

But what if this routine could be different, more efficient? Healthier. And even kinder to our planet.

Mikko Ampuja: 0:56

I need to get rid of the car. I started cycling. And I realized that, Hey, this is actually faster, I can get to whatever I want really fast. And actually research already states that bicycle is usually the fastest way to go around city centers. When you have less than five miles to cover, it's seriously, it's super fast. Not many people actually understand it before they, they try it out.

Jed Tabernero: 1:17

Today, we're joined by Mikko. Um, the founder and former CEO of Uh, company born out of the streets of Helsinki. That boss isn't just about bikes. It's about redefining the essence of city community.

Mikko Ampuja: 1:36

The energy that you have, like in the morning, if you start your day with a half an hour on a bicycle, instead of sitting in the traffic, sitting in the car, it's completely different. You get to the office and you're already like feeling like, yay. Hey, I've done like my first exercise of the day. Let's bring it on.

Jed Tabernero: 1:54

Mika story is a Testament to a larger shift happening in the urban centers around the world. Cities like Copenhagen. Amsterdam. And even the snowy Olu in Finland. Are embracing and you ethos. One where bicycles play a central role in shaping urban life.

Mikko Ampuja: 2:14

A lot of it definitely comes from urban planning. But it takes a long time. To become a real cycling city. In addition to Netherlands, Denmark is another like country full of cyclists. Really started designing their cities around the fact that cars shouldn't be prioritized.

2:32

So let's gear up, shift our perspectives and pedal into a future where every revolution brings us closer to a world that moves differently.

Shikher Bhandary: 3:20

So I wanted to start this call by talking about my day, right? My job and it might resemble many other folks out there who are listening to this call, right? I wake up. I get ready. I drive out to work because in the U S you have the scar culture. You have to get to work, which is, five, six miles, and you have to use the freeways. You get in your car, you're sitting there and then you end up at work. And then you're sitting at the desk for about eight to ten hours straight. In this modern tech driven world, our lives are so sedentary. Like we are sitting at work, at home, scrolling on your phone, even in leisure time. It's like becoming one of the big concerns out there for health and well being. So on that context, wanted to introduce our incredible guest today Miko, founder and chief business development officer at Worpus. And this is a really unique platform that not only addresses our sedentary habits, but also aims to solve the practical aspects of, commuting to work, but in a cost effective and zero emission manner. So what is their secret ingredient, their secret sauce? Well, Cycles, Miko, it's great to have you on the show.

Mikko Ampuja: 4:38

Thank you. Thank you so much. We're really trying to change some things here. So it's a, it's a really good podcast to be. First of all, I used to work as a, like a consultant before did like a 10 years of management consultancy doing market research and new products and how to enter markets and whatnot. I used to work in the city center of Helsinki. And then as a young professional, I kind of like, you know, thought that, Hey, I get to the working life, so I need to, you know, upgrade my life. So I got myself a car and all that, but but then the reality of like, actually like driving in Helsinki was terrible. I used to take my car and then drive it to my office. I. Realized that, Hey, I'm actually sitting in the traffic lights constantly. Then trying to figure out where to actually park my car. One, one month, I actually, I think I got something like three or four parking tickets in, in two weeks. I, I came to the conclusion that, Hey, this doesn't make any sense. I need to get rid of the car. Cause I live in the center. We have really good, like public transport and there's like all the other opportunities as well available. But yeah, so I ditched the car and then I started cycling. And I realized that, Hey, this is actually faster cause I don't need to look sit in the traffic lights. I can get to the, like, whatever I want really fast. And actually research already states that bicycle is usually the fastest way to go around like city centers. When you have less than five miles to cover, it's seriously, it's super fast. Not, not many people actually understand it before they, they try it out. But then again, the, the, the really like the big thing was that. The energy that you have, like in the morning, if you, if you start your day with a half an hour on a cycle on, on a bicycle, instead of like sitting in the, in the traffic, sitting in the car, it's completely different. You know, you, you get to the office and you're already like feeling like, yay. Hey, I've done like my first exercise of the day. Let's bring it on. So it's, it's completely different. So that was, that was the, one of the big things that I thought that, Hey, you know, bicycles are fantastic. But at that point, I still didn't think that it's going to be like a business for me, but I think one of the biggest things in my life happened in 2017. And that was when my daughter was born, knowing that everything that's happening in the world with the climate change and, and, and, and whatnot, I really started thinking about that, you know, this. Little girl is going to ask me some tough questions in 20 years that, Hey, dad, what did you do during the climate crisis? I couldn't bear the idea that I wouldn't have like a proper, proper, like a answer to that. Like it kind of felt like that sort of moment when you have to decide that, Hey, which side of the history are you going to be with the, one of the biggest, biggest battles of Alzheimer's. So that was actually the moment when I decided that, Hey, I'll quit my consulting job. and figure out something else where I can actually live, like, true to my values. And yeah, there was so much like good stuff happening with cycling already at that point. So I started looking into the market and realized that, Hey, so a really good, like consumer products, but not so much happening in the business, the business or like employer point of view. So that was really like, like how we got started with Vapaus. It's really fantastic right now. Every morning that I wake up. I can really think that, Hey, I'm actually like fulfilling the mission that Hawaii, we started the whole company. So I'm really happy about that. I'm really excited about that.

Jed Tabernero: 8:08

That's awesome. And it's a great story for getting started. I want to share a little, anecdote on my part, why I thought this was such a cool business to get into. So I've changed my name for this call to be the husband of a Dutch woman. And I think for some people, this will be quite obvious of why that is, but we have audiences from around the world. In fact, the biggest are outside of North America. So I just wanted to share that, the reason why I changed that name is because cycling is a huge thing for my wife. She's grown up with cycling. I visit the Netherlands every year, at least twice or three times a year. And I don't get around there via car. I get around via cycle and. Everywhere we go, whether it's the park or the mall, we all cycle to get there's lanes and everything. The infrastructure for cycling is insane. I think there's a, there's like 400 kilometers of cycling lanes there. And one really awesome thing I did in the last summer is go to the city of Utrecht and Utrecht is a beautiful city. It's a smaller Amsterdam. Has a lot of the same stuff. The canals, the beauty, the buildings. One of the things that they had in Utrecht is the biggest bicycle parking lot. I don't know if it's on the planet.

Mikko Ampuja: 9:28

I think it is.

Jed Tabernero: 9:28

It is, it is in the planet. Okay. There's a slot for about. I think it's 12, 500 bicycles in this parking lot. And dude, it's not a joke. Like you come into it. It looks like they really thought about people coming in and out, there's elevators and places. It's a parking garage. It's like proper really huge mind boggling for me coming from, a very urban area, which is, I'm in Jersey city. I come to New York every day for work, mind boggling for me to see such good infrastructure for cycling. Because I'm living in a place where I could technically cycle to work, to be honest with you, but it just is so dangerous to do so I guess, trying to put this all together, why do you think this works in places like here, Europe more, you're saying, you're seeing a lot of things. For cycling coming up. And I think that's very unique to the European market, although in some places in America, we're starting to figure it out, but if you see somebody with a bike over here, you assume they bike on the weekends, you don't assume they use it to go to work. You know what I mean? So can you shed us a little bit of light on why this works for the European market?

Mikko Ampuja: 10:33

A lot of it definitely comes from like just urban planning. Cause it's, it's not something that, you know, you can just overnight that decide that, Hey, we'll get rid of all the cars here and we'll start cycling, but it takes a long time. Really to become like a real cycling city. In addition to Netherlands, Denmark is another like country full of cyclists. And they've been doing it for like 50 years, like really started designing their cities around the fact that cars shouldn't be prioritized. But car is one part of the, you know, transportation in this, in this city. But we have other ways as well. They have basically tried to bring bicycles to the same level. Maybe in some cases higher than the, than the car. But really, you know, plan the city from that point of view, you go to Copenhagen or you go to Amsterdam, you know, the bicycles are really, you know, up there, you can see them everywhere. And so like a huge part of the commuting in, in, in those cities, and it's not about the weather. Because in Finland, for example, one of the biggest cycling cities in Finland is Oulu, which is 600 kilometers north from Helsinki. So there's like snow all the time. Well, not during the summertime, but anyway, during the winter time. So people cycle there like throughout the year, despite the weather. In the middle of the snow, it doesn't matter because the infrastructure is good. You have the cycle, I'll call them highways, and you have the network. They have taken it into consideration that you have bike parking and whatnot.

Shikher Bhandary: 12:03

I read this crazy stat that in Finland, almost 50 to 60 percent of the working population lives within six, seven, eight kilometers from their work. So it's they're so close that if the infrastructure is already there, if the culture within the community, within the city is already there. Like you mentioned, force of habit, everyone's just taking a bike and reaching work just the same way, which is great because it hits like three things, right? We mentioned it already, it hits not just the cost savings, not just the sustainability aspect, but also your wealth. There are just so many benefits to it. No wonder the solution is working. Can you break down what your platform offers? Because I know you mentioned employers. I know there is a curation for employees as well.

Mikko Ampuja: 12:54

In a nutshell, we provide is basically an employee benefit bike. So it's a, like a fringe benefit that can be provided to your, to your employees in a company. So the process is quite simple is that we make like a framework contract with the, with the employer that they decided, Hey, now we want to start supporting cycling in our workplace. And we want to provide this benefit to our employees. We do the framework contract, and then, you know, you guys can, for example, go to your local bike shop or online stores or whatever, and get the bicycle of your dreams. And then that will be actually invoiced in a way that we basically sent the invoice to the employer, and then they will be reduced from your, from your paycheck. So very similar to like a company car benefit, but it's a bicycle. So it's cheaper, it's more sustainable. It's better for your health. Very, very simple. But obviously the whole network that we are, we're operating here is quite complex because if you go into the. You know, car market, you usually have like a few brands that you provide, but we can do actually more than 200 different bicycle brands. We have hundreds of partners stores where you can get the bicycles that we are offering. We have built the software and the platform and the product that then facilitates this whole network that you can go basically. Almost go anywhere and get yourself a bicycle through, through the system.

Shikher Bhandary: 14:22

So anywhere within the market that you're currently

Mikko Ampuja: 14:25

Yeah. Yeah. We are looking into solutions where we could actually like expand more trap rapidly also, but that's not happening right now. It's in the future. It's like so much like opportunities in the market right now.

Shikher Bhandary: 14:37

So that's on the B2B side, Miko. So on the B2C, you're working with consumers. You're seeing all these e bikes. Come into the picture where they're a lot more expensive. Cost is a big factor for you and your mission. So I'd love to understand how you're tackling that challenge.

Mikko Ampuja: 14:57

The average price of the bicycle that we are currently offering is like 3, 200 euros.

Shikher Bhandary: 15:02

Wow. Uh,

Jed Tabernero: 15:04

That's a secondhand car.

Shikher Bhandary: 15:06

that is,

Mikko Ampuja: 15:07

that's the average. I think the most expensive one that I've seen was like 12, 000 euros. It kind of like already like gives you an idea that what's happening in the bicycle market is right now is that you know, 20 years ago they were quite simple things, but now with the e bikes, all the technology, they're Becoming like really, really cool gadgets that are kind of like an amazing way. If you, if you tried cycling 20 years before and you try like a brand new e bike right now, you're ready to have your mind blown because they just feel like fantastic. I, I, the first time I tried like a real high quality e mountain bike, for example. It took me, I don't know, like half an hour. I felt like a professional mountain bike rider when I was like riding through the forest, like a 20 miles an hour. That's been happening all the time that it's at the actual price of the bikes is, is going up, not just because of inflation, but also just because that the high tech that is actually going into the bicycles, but there's basically. Two simple mechanics or actually three, how we try to tackle that first one is that it's obvious we provide this sort of like a leasing service. So you don't have to come up with the whole 3000 euros or, or, or more like upfront, but it's paid in like, just like monthly installments. The second thing is there's like a tax incentives happening all around Europe. There's like 150 million employees work in areas where there's some sort of like tax incentive in place. So actually you end up 20 to 35 percent less for the bike. That's a super important component. And the third part is that we wanted to build the system from the, and the business through this like a circular economy foundation. So we have very heavy focus also on used bikes. So what happens is that we leased out to quite a like substantial number of bicycles to our customers and then something happens. So you decide that you don't want to use the bicycle anymore. So you can basically just return it to us. I think we have the biggest secondhand bicycle store in the Nordics currently. That is like in house just because

Shikher Bhandary: 17:15

That itself is like a business.

Mikko Ampuja: 17:18

yeah, so we have those like returning bikes, their secondhand bikes, really well kept high quality bikes. And then we can then again, these, these, those again to new users. So all this like creates the platform where we can actually provide like really high quality bikes for like a really reasonable price for our customers.

Jed Tabernero: 17:38

Do you also own the bikes then? Wow. Okay. So it's actually your inventory of bikes and you're responsible for kind of the maintenance and all that stuff as

Mikko Ampuja: 17:47

we have a few ways of financing the fleet. Some of the bikes are owned by like an external leasing partner, but we do have a bit of high quality bikes on our own balance sheet as well.

Shikher Bhandary: 17:58

that's pretty cool. Like inventory management aside, both Jed and I have some experience over there. I'm just thinking you could just wake up one day and be like, you know what? I'm good with the 700 euro bike. Let me just try out the 12, 000 euro bike. I mean, it's sitting right there. We have, we've ordered extras. Do those things cross your mind like it would mine? Or is it just me?

Mikko Ampuja: 18:25

The bicycle that I ride the most, I think it's worth like a hundred bucks or something like that. It's my, you know, go to bicycle. Then again, every time I do go like walk in the, in the, in the storage room and

Vaupaus_V0-03: 18:38

the

Mikko Ampuja: 18:38

warehouse, Oh, that's, that's a really cool one. I need one of those. And cause also what's happening is that. You know, you've got like bicycle for like a very many like different situations and needs. You have something that is perfect for commuting and then maybe like an e bike so you can, you know, go to work, get the bit of exercise and blood pumping, but you know, you don't have to sweat because with an e bike you can control how much effort you actually put into the commuting. Then you have the mountain bikes then you have the cargo bikes. Which is actually something that I'm really like looking forward to getting right now is the Cargo bike because I could actually Take my kid for a ride and then go to the like the local supermarket to get all the groceries and everything

Jed Tabernero: 19:23

Let me tell you, my wife, when I told her about this was juiced, was ecstatic that, there is such a company that we're having on the show because her and her family, obviously they love. They love cycling. And it's just a great way. I read this crazy stat that there's only a few countries in Europe that aren't getting more and more obese. And the Netherlands is one of them, which is, it's interesting. But then you think about what kind of infrastructure they have and how people get to work and what people exactly do. And it's suddenly becomes obvious. Yeah. Everybody commutes to go to work. The kids at a very young age start cycling to very far away high school. Grade school, whatever it is, and everybody's so used to it. And I used to think to myself, I grew up in the Philippines, by the way, cycling anywhere would mean I'm sweaty. So if I'm cycling anywhere, got to bring a towel. Got to, if there's a shower, I'm showering. If there's no shower, there's no way you'll get me cycling. Cause I grew up near the equator. But now all of a sudden, I just think about you have prime ministers, like getting to work on a bike in the Netherlands, like it's a testament to the fact that you don't have to be all sweaty. It's a part of the culture. Maybe it's something you can control depending on what kind of bike you have or how distant you are to work. But it is now not so far from, the future to be able to just go by, especially here. It's so cold in New York city. I feel like I wouldn't have that concern anymore, but it's not obvious because that's not something. The employers

Mikko Ampuja: 20:51

Yeah, and definitely e bikes are like a complete game changer in that that sense because first of all, you know You decide how how much i'm going to push it Like I'm going to get like a full exercise. So I'm just going to like cruise like easily. And it, there's like a ton of research on that already that e bikes are first of all lowering the threshold of actually starting cycling, also increasing the distances that people cover with the bicycles. You know, the batteries last for a hundred kilometers. So what, 60 miles.

Jed Tabernero: 21:25

the parking situation, I'm assuming there's a lot of infrastructure in the places that you're present. But is that something you're also thinking about? What if employers don't have places to park the bike?

Mikko Ampuja: 21:35

Yeah, we call it the conversion rate. So how many employees in a specific workplace actually take the bicycle through us? And we can really see that the ones with the highest rates are the ones who have some sort of like a cycling plan in place. And that usually covers things like bicycle parking. It also covers things like locker rooms and showers to be available as well. There might be some sort of like bike service. Place in the office and all that. And I went to some of the, like the gaming and it companies here in, here in Helsinki, probably given the budget, you know, build your own like cycling facilities.

Shikher Bhandary: 22:12

Interesting. So just on that point, Miko, the stats internally, you have the data and the insights to tell you how this platform is performing, how commuters are benefiting from this. Can you reveal some of that? When a service like cycling or commuting to work is made more available to employers, how does that change their behaviors?

Mikko Ampuja: 22:34

That's a really good question. And I think one of the key things that we really wanted to know when we got started with the business cause there were some people who were kind of worried that. Well, you know, what's going to happen is that the ones who already cycle, they're just going to get a new bicycle. Cause there's also like a saying that the correct number of bicycles is N plus one, where N is your current number of bicycles. In reality, what happened is that almost 90 percent of our customers are actually saying that they have increased their, like cycling through, through the Wapos service. So that's really mind blowing for us that. We can really see that we're like creating like a huge, huge impact here. Then the second thing is that more than half of our customers are saying that they also driving their cars less.

Shikher Bhandary: 23:20

Two big divergence, cars, less, more cycling.

Mikko Ampuja: 23:25

So it's, it's, it's really fantastic because it really proves the point that the mission that we're trying to accomplish here is we are in a really good track. They're cycling more, they are healthier and then they are driving less, which also then like reduces the emissions from, from the commuting. So I'm, I'm, I'm super happy about that. Something to be proud of.

Jed Tabernero: 23:46

So I guess just to give us an idea of the markets that you're in, and the markets that you'd want to be in,

Mikko Ampuja: 23:53

Yeah, so we got to like off to like really good start in Finland. That's still our, basically most of our revenues come from here, but there's still so much more room to grow in, in Finland as well. I think we're just getting started in that sense. We're focusing on the, on the market entry to, to Sweden right now. Sweden is a bit bigger market than Finland. It's a super interesting market in that sense that, well, culturally we are kind of like close to each other. Then again, we have a different currency. We have like different tax rates and systems. So it's like really interesting for us to make sure that it kind of proves that our technology. Scales to different market situations really well. afTer that there's like so many opportunities, for example, Austria is a, it's like a interesting market. France is another one. All countries are looking into the same question that how do we make our mobility more sustainable in the future? How do we make sure that our people remain healthy? I I'm. I'm a hundred percent sure that we will see like new countries entering the same sort of model in the future as well. For example, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Norway, so much room to grow all around Europe as well. But then again, if we think about the challenge, it's not the European challenge, but it's a global challenge. Like. European cities are also quite old, so changing the infrastructure is, it takes a long time.

Shikher Bhandary: 25:24

Fast growing European cities, literally the market that you're targeting Sweden, I think Stockholm Gothenburg, Malmo, like they're all the fastest growing European cities. So those are young cities, younger cities, and there's a lot of population growth out there, which is being slated for the next 10, 20

Mikko Ampuja: 25:47

Yeah. Yeah. The, the Swedish cities are not so young per se when you think about like when they were like originally founded, but they are growing quite well because of immigration. So there's a lot of like younger population there. It, yeah, that was actually, it was called the Stockholm phenomena at some point here in, here in Finland where they came up with the realization that. You know, the teenagers and you know, young adults in Stockholm didn't want to get the driver's license anymore.

Jed Tabernero: 26:14

whenever I hear about these kind of European anecdotes, I think about the US, And in areas in some places that this might work, because I always think it'd be great to have a solution like that across cities. But New York, for example, making really big efforts in some neighborhoods to have that infrastructure to protect us when we're actually doing this. It's actually for me, at least in my wife, obviously we like cycling quite a bit. Her biggest concern is safety. Being able to bike safely. And, for us, like that, it just doesn't look as safe as it could be. And the amount of accidents out here for biking is, it's too high. We hear about it almost every day on the news. So it's not great.

Mikko Ampuja: 26:57

Yeah. With bicycles, the, one of the big problems has been that in urban planning, it's been either, you know, considered like a, something a bit like a pedestrian. So you put the bicycles where people walk,

Jed Tabernero: 27:10

Yeah.

Mikko Ampuja: 27:10

then you put them like in the middle of the cars. So if you put the bicycle where the people are walking, obviously everyone who's walking feel unsafe and the one who's cycling doesn't, you know, go very fast. And then again, if you put the bike in the middle of the cars, cyclist is going to, you know, freak out. One of the key things that people are really making, making right now is that you create like a separate You know, parts for, for cyclists, because if you go fly above like larger cities and then you look down and start thinking that how much of the city space, how much of the urban area is actually dedicated just for cars right now, that's really mind blowing. Well, cities is supposed to be for people, but then you look at it, like how much is actually reserved for cars. That's super expensive. Like just think about how much of the space is actually reserved for cars.

Jed Tabernero: 28:07

And we're getting to that point. You're right. SF itself has this problem of making entire areas, just. For parking lots and it's ridiculous. It's parking lots centered city. And of course it's America. We've built all of the cities around, cars and automobiles. And so people are very used to that culture. But now when I think about the urban planning crisis we're having in San Francisco, for example, the running out of solutions that I think that they got a point towards something like cycling, I'll give you an example. I just came from Bogota, Colombia two weeks ago. And every Sunday they have areas where they prevent any cars from going a certain road, and it's a very long road across Bogota. It's actually also the same lane as the buses and they basically stop all activity and encourage everybody to just bike everywhere on Sundays. This is every Sunday, by the way, in Bogota, which is crazy because it seems like they're a little bit more ahead on the biking culture than we are. But. Just to give you an example of another market that's ready for something like this, to get into commercialization of, this B2B to C type model where people are actually thinking of biking as a mode of transport. So if you're thinking about Latin America, I would look at Bogota as one of the places to expand to in the future, because people are quite used to biking, even if it's a hilly area, similar to San Francisco.

Mikko Ampuja: 29:34

Yeah. Thanks for the tip. I really have to make a note on that. I have one of my good friends is actually from Bogota, so I have to give him a call.

Shikher Bhandary: 29:42

Awesome. Miko, we want to give you the stage to talk about your company, your work, give a shout out to your team, recent developments and, fundraising and so on.

Mikko Ampuja: 29:54

You probably heard already heard that I'm. Pretty excited about our business and the, and the mission that we're doing. The really great thing about this is that we can really, you know, combine the positive net, net impact with the, and align it with like revenues and growth and like doing like really good business, like honestly, I think this is really the, like the future of business in like very much that you need to align something that creates like positive net impact and, and the more revenues you do. The better is the, like the positive net impact. So that's really happening with Bob house. And I really happy that would like the way that it's actually attracting super talent also into the company and really see that we have like, like mind people who are in the company. I think we have like something like eight nationalities right now already, because we've been building this business to scale globally to scale all around Europe and after that, definitely to, to, to new markets as well. This year we got like a really nice recognition because we were chosen from 700 great startups, mobility startups to win the European Startup Prize for Mobility Gold. This year, I want to give like a super big thanks to everyone in the team, because it's been really amazing to build this company together with, with all those talented people that we have on board and we are like fundraising. So anyone interested to invest into sustainable mobility, you can reach out to me or some of my colleagues or Mikko at Vapaus. io is my email. So the focus is right now in Finland and Sweden, but we are looking. Beyond that into like the continental Europe as well.

Shikher Bhandary: 31:34

Thanks a lot, Miko. This was fantastic. And you made a point, business can be the best change bringer, change maker, change creator. So I'd love to end on that note. That's how we see our podcast as well. We are called things have changed for a reason because all of these changes are taking place and we need to be that change. So thanks a lot for coming on.

Mikko Ampuja: 31:56

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Jed Tabernero: 31:59

Absolute pleasure. And you have really admirable goals very difficult ones as well. Kudos to you and your team. Thank you to the VapAus team for doing what you do and yeah, super excited to see you on the global stage. As we close today's episode of things have changed podcast. We'd like to thank Uh, for taking us through the evolving landscape of the bicycle industry. Did you know that globally, the number of trips made by bicycle exceeds those made by car. It's a simple reminder of how widespread and impactful cycling has become. This conversation sheds light on the profound shifts in our transportation choices. And there are far reaching implications. Thank you for joining us. And until next time. Stay curious. The information and opinions expressed in this episode are for informational purposes only. And are not intended as financial investment or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any decisions based on the concept provided. Neither the podcast, nor is creators are responsible for any actions taken as a result of listening to this episode.