It all started 2021 when the founders, who have been friends since university, were invited to the north of Sweden for a winter adventure. With a previous interest in the electric vehicle revolution, they realized that snowmobiles experience had been left out.
- The vehicles were very noisy, and we were recommended to wear protective overalls to avoid getting the smell of exhaust fumes into our clothes, says co-founder and CEO Christian Lystrup
Fossil-fuel snowmobiles emit approximately 20 kg of Co2 per average ride. Vidde is determined to change this while also taking the whole life cycle of the vehicle into consideration.
- Creating a vehicle paying respect to the impact of the vehicle´s total life cycle makes it possible to reduce the environmental impact several times over, continues Christian Lystrup.
Creating a vehicle paying respect to the impact of the vehicle´s total life cycle makes it possible to reduce the environmental impact several times over.
The Swedish market was a good starting point when establishing Vidde.
- Sweden is the third largest snowmobile market in the world, only behind US and Canada. Sweden also has the experience and knowledge needed to create and produce the world´s first sustainable, electric snowmobile, says co-founder and CFO Yalda Mirbaz.
Vidde has just finished formal testing of their electric snowmobile prototype and are now about to design fully electric pre-series vehicles.
We are just now working intensively on designing the pre-series called Alfa together with vehicle design house Pininfarina and teams from Research Institutes of Sweden.
- We are just now working intensively on designing the pre-series called Alfa together with vehicle design house Pininfarina and teams from Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), continues Yalda Mirbaz.
The next step is to produce the “Alfa” vehicles that will be tested next winter together with their partners SkiStar, Icehotel and Skellefteå Kraft.
Vidde is moving fast. They recently closed an external financing pre-seed round and are now entering a seed round to raise +20M SEK that will be used for building and testing the “Alfa” vehicles in the winter 2023/24.
- The biggest challenge and priority for Vidde so far is to keep the high momentum in everything we do. We don´t have the luxury of excess time on our hands and therefore continuously need to get our focus and priorities right, says Christian Lystrup .
We don´t have the luxury of excess time on our hands and therefore continuously need to get our focus and priorities right.
The key is a tight team .
- We solve this by having a small senior core team working closely together with a network of external experts who support us on the different projects, continues Christian Lystrup.
Vidde also highlights the value of courage and the possibility to secure demand before going into production.
Dare to do what´s right! Currently there are no sustainable electric snowmobiles on the market, and you could be forgiven for thinking that this is because there is no demand. However, Vidde’s pre-orders alone prove that there is a market for a sustainable alternative, concludes Yalda Mirbaz.
Dare to do what´s right!
At least one out of three adults suffers from two chronic illnesses worldwide. Brothers Petter and Jesper Aasa want to change that. They have now launched Vitala, the world’s first medical training and rehabilitation app. To boost the launch further they enlisted the help of Peter Dalmalm, Head of Business Banking Sweden, with the goal of helping one billion people.
New health app gets mentor push from NordeaNorrsken supports entrepreneurs who solve our biggest challenges, such as poverty, hunger, environmental issues, mental health and integration. Norrsken supports by running Norrsken House (a gathering place and ecosystem in Stockholm with 450 impact-tech entrepreneurs) and a billion-dollar VC fund.
Since 2018, Nordea has been the main partner of Norrsken House and we support members daily with our advice, expertise and network of major customers and investors. Norrsken and Nordea have now renewed their partnership until 2024.
Norrsken and Nordea - renewed partnership