Why we invested in Betterway

Cracking the MaaS equation…

At Aster, we have been scratching our heads over the Mobility-as-a-Service equation for many years. Understanding how digital solutions can provide individuals with the best options for getting from A to B is an exciting yet complex topic. Over the last decade, proven alternatives have emerged to free a growing part of the population from car ownership. In our opinion, the growing number of mobility offers (in urban areas but not only, hello Karos 👋) combined with increasing environmental awareness is fertile ground for the emergence of new digital leaders aggregating mobility to serve individual needs.

In a nutshell, we now have more options to move than ever before, but this has led to a greater fragmentation of the mobility environment for individuals. This is also true for corporates and governments, as it has never been more complex to understand how employees/citizens move and how they want to be served.

For this reason, we felt there was a missing piece to this giant mobility puzzle. For years, we have been looking for companies that aggregate different mobility services to offer seamless experiences to commuters, without cannibalizing the underlying mobility offers.

And that’s exactly what Betterway is doing. Thanks to its mobility credit card, Betterway helps companies offer their employees flexible and green commuting options and financing schemes. This fintech approach to improving employee mobility is quite unique, and solves many of the common roadblocks typically encountered by traditional MaaS platforms:

• A seamless UX: Betterway is not just another mobility app. In fact, there is no B2C app at all
• A comprehensive coverage: Betterway’s credit card can be used to pay for any mobility service, and therefore doesn’t jeopardize any existing providers
• A robust Business Model: Betterway is free for end users and mobility providers, and instead charges corporates, which benefit from a clear ROI in terms of employee retention, reduced paperwork and positive CO2 impact.

More than that, we believe Betterway has laid the foundations of a mobility bank account for individuals and/or organizations, but let’s not talk too much about this for now 👀

…with an A-team…

It is not easy to build a fintech leader in the Mobility space. Success requires a good mix of vision, grit, management skills, and expertise about mobility ecosystems and tech organizations. We believe the Betterway team blends all of these qualifications together, and much more:

• Denis is a visionary and persevering entrepreneur with extensive experience at Uber & in the mobility space
• Alain is a caring tech leader who has scaled the operational teams of TakeEatEasy & Algolia over the last few years
• Clément is a passionate team player whose growth hacking & marketing skills have already been instrumental in Betterway’s success

In addition to their individual skills, we have been impressed by Denis, Alain & Clément’s listening abilities and willingness to progress together as a team, which has sped up Betterway’s learning curve over the few months.

…executing at the speed of light

As mentioned above, kickstarting a company in the mobility jungle is complex. Embedding your product with a certified physical credit card is also complex. Signing real contracts with large corporations (Allianz, Vinci) and leading tech companies (BackMarket) in the first few months seems crazy. Doing all this in the context of a global pandemic seemed impossible.

Yet Betterway has done all this in just under 9 months, while attending exhausting investor meetings (sorry). It is uncommon to achieve product-market fit so quickly, and although Betterway’s journey has only just begun, we have been truly impressed with the team’s achievements so far.