Bruntor Cargo among six top mobility ideas in Europe

Bruntor Cargo, the electric scooter with a cargo box designed for parcel delivery companies, has made it to the final of EIT Jumpstarter, a competition by EIT Mobility, a Knowledge and Innovation Community at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. To reach the final, the Latvian company competed against 600 other ideas from all over Europe.

“In April, we entered the EIT Jumpstarter with a fledgling idea for a cargo scooter for everyday use, which arose during a hackathon. Initially, we thought that the product could make life easier for city dwellers without a car, so that they wouldn’t have to use a car when going about their daily routine with shopping and other heavy cargo,” says Raimonds Jurgelis, founder of Bruntor.

Now, Bruntor is now among the top six mobility ideas in Europe.

“This means a lot to us, as we have overtaken candidates from major tech countries too,” Raimonds shares his joy.

EIT Jumpstarter will also issue a People’s Choice Award, decided by online vote. Anyone can contribute until 27 November. “Regardless of the results, we are already actively working towards addressing specific customer needs, which have increased significantly since the trade show in Barcelona. We had interest from Europe and further afield – even Chile and Brazil,” says Raimonds.

Focusing on last mile deliveries

Shortly after applying, he also participated in Vefresh’s pre-acceleration programme, during which he changed the focus to urban last-mile deliveries to reduce congestion, ease delivery workers’ day-to-day and improve urban air quality. The team reached out to potential customers on LinkedIn with images of the scooter. Most were sceptical, saying it is too small, too ugly, and indicates no clear use. “However, some responded. We have signed a cooperation agreement with one of the delivery companies. Outside Latvia, others too are following our development.” 

The new Bruntor delivery scooter prototype was presented at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona in November. Raimonds says that both logistics companies and city representatives appreciated the new vehicle’s abilities. “In a day, Bruntor Cargo can deliver just as many small and medium-sized parcels in a city as a car. However, it will cost up to five times less and won’t produce harmful emissions during delivery,” he explains.

Wins the Idea Cup

Raimonds’ off-road electrified board Bruntor won last year’s Idea Cup competition, wrote Labs of Latvia. The idea came about during the pandemic when he had just returned to Latvia. Previously, he lived in Germany near the Alps, where he snowboarded on weekends. In Latvia, he couldn’t – there wasn’t that much snow and the local slopes were closed during the pandemic. So Raimonds got the idea to buy an electric skateboard to ride in the forests and off-road at least in the summer months. “I started looking around to see what was available, but I didn’t find anything that appealed to me. So I decided I had to build one myself,” he says.

Initially, he did not intend to develop the idea as a business, but friends suggested applying to the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia’s (LIAA) Idea Cup competition. Immediately after winning the competition, he took part in the Buildit acceleration programme. Raimonds also graduated from the LIAA and Riga Business School Innovation Academy programme. And the team recently attended the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Camp.

Author: Anda Asere (labsoflatvia.com). Publicity photo.