There's a new scooter company in town: Veo comes to Indianapolis
There's a new game in town in Indianapolis: Veo, a Chicago-based manufacturer of electric scooters and bikes.
Veo deployed 500 of its black-and-teal electric scooters in the city Thursday, entering a market currently occupied by Bird and Lime.
The company operates in about 30 cities across the country, including Fort Wayne and Bloomington, on the Indiana University campus. It's in an expansion phase now, planning launches in cities Minneapolis, Milwaukee and San Jose in the coming months, said Jeff Hoover, Veo's director of government partnerships.
It received its license from Indianapolis' Department of Business and Neighborhood Services in late June.
Indianapolis felt like a good fit to the company, which got its start in West Lafayette and was founded by two Purdue University graduates, Hoover said.
"Indianapolis feels very much at home to Veo," he said.
They also took note of the popularity of existing scooters in the city, whose use rebounded significantly since the pandemic.
Electric scooters had a rocky start in Indianapolis in 2018. Bird and Lime came first that summer, initially without permission from the city.
The city first issued cease-and-desist letters, than quickly passed regulations that require scooter companies to pay a $15,000 license fee and a daily $1 fee; restrict the number of scooters that can be deployed; and prohibit their use on sidewalks.
In 2018, the city voted to put the dollar-per-day fee into an account dedicated toward making streets safer for alternative modes of transportation.
From 2021:Scooters are making a comeback - and the city is planning how to spend the revenue
Scooter company Spin spent a brief time in Indianapolis, too. It received a license in early 2019, but did not deploy scooters until June 2021, at which point it had 100 to 200 scooters on the streets compared to Bird and Lime's 2,000, collectively.
In late January this year, Spin pulled out of the Indianapolis market and other U.S. markets that the company says "lacks sensible regulations."
In a letter to employees, Spin executives said they are shifting strategy to focus on markets where scooter companies are selected through a competitive bidding process.
Veo, on the other hand, has a longterm goal of bringing the rest of its fleet to Indianapolis, which includes sit-down scooters and e-bikes.
"We're a slow-burn type of company," Hoover said.
In light of the launch in Indianapolis, for the next month, Veo is offering a $5 credit for users through the app using the code RIDEINDY.
Contact IndyStar transportation reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @kayla_dwyer17.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Electric scooters, bikes in Indianapolis: New company joins the fray
