Houlihan Lokey Advises Bike Club

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Bike Club, the largest children’s bike subscription scheme in the UK, has successfully closed its Series B funding round, led by Circularity Capital and existing investor Codex Capital.

Founded in 2016 by James Symes and Alexandra Rico-Lloyd, Bike Club is revolutionising the cycle industry by offering families the chance to subscribe to new or refurbished bikes and scooters online and then exchange them as their children grow. With the new funding round, the subscription success story has ambitions to pedal into Germany and France within the next 12 to 24 months.

Outgrowing the fleets of Lime, Uber, and Santander Cycles, the easy-to-manage monthly subscription program—costing between £4.49 and £15.99 per month—has a network of 40,000 quality bikes. With the new investment, the program is on track to climb to 220,000 over the next three years. Subscribers are now set to more than double to 80,000 in the next year.

Already the largest bike subscription scheme in the UK, Bike Club is chaired by Mike Balfour OBE, founder of Fitness First. Leading the investment is Circularity Capital, a private equity firm specialising in European growth-stage businesses in the circular economy, and existing investor Codex Capital. Circularity Capital uses the circular economy as a framework to help investee businesses decouple their growth from resource constraints, enhance resource productivity, and drive competitive advantage.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Bike Club and assisted the management and shareholders mainly in investor approach, ESG positioning, and deal tactics, while acting as a sparring partner throughout the transaction process.

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