2hire, cutting-edge technology for the mobility industry
2hire is an Italian technology company working in the mobility industry, enabling digital mobility solutions around vehicles’ connectivity.
2hire was born in 2015 in Rome from the idea of 4 entrepreneurs – Filippo Agostino, Matteo Filippi, Andrea Verdelocco, and Elisabetta Mari.
At the beginning, 2hire launched as an electric scooter sharing service, like Cooltra or MiMoto, aiming to create a scooter sharing service for the students of LUISS University in Rome.
The early development of 2hire as a sharing service soon became more of a technological development, having noticed that the technologies available at the time were quite basic and the available vehicles poorly performing, despite the high prices.
“We started by developing a new technology to manage scooters”, CEO Filippo Agostino explains. “And, when it was ready, we tried to adapt it to other types of vehicles, like cars. And it worked!”.
Therefore, the company switched focus. It moved from being a mobility operator to provide a hardware and software solution for mobility operators. Its core became to build and provide innovative digital mobility solutions to mobility operators.
In September 2017, 2hire entered the LVenture Group acceleration program and received 80.000 euros to develop further its MVP. Later that year, the company closed a first investment round for 600.000 euros. LVenture Group, Invitalia Ventures, MobilityUP, Boost Heroes, and some business angels contributed to the round.
At the beginning of 2020, the company raised 5.6 million euros in a Round A. The lead investor was P101, along with Linkem (a 5G operator leader in the business of ultra-broadband wireless telecommunications), Invitalia Ventures, LVenture Group.
2hire’s growth got a further boost despite the challenges caused by the pandemic
When the covid pandemic hit, it has dragged the mobility sector along with it. During lockdowns people hardly used vehicles. Nevertheless, 2hire managed to overcome this situation by focusing on development and innovation of its technology solution.
Among its digital solutions, 2hire offers an high tech sought-after device which connects non connected vehicles, enabling data reading and remote interactions with vehicles while limiting contact to a minimum.
While for natively connected vehicles, 2hire started partnering with manufacturers directly, and to work side by side with them to enable the connectivity functionalities for mobility operators while providing valuable feedback to OEMs for their enhancement and development of the technology made available.
2hire race to the connected revolution embarked on an upward path by closing contracts with some of the top players in the market from major carmakers to car rental companies and P2P sharing companies leader in their markets.
As of now, 2hire keeps pushing forward and is three times bigger than in 2019, with more than 35 people in the team.
2hire has an international outreach, by working in 16 countries worldwide with more than 20k vehicles connected by its technology. The company’s European presence is firmly established and since 2022 it has also been actively operating in the US market.
For 2023 the company has already secured important contracts with leading mobility operators to support them in their digital transition, which in turn will boost the number of vehicles connected through 2hire technology and the spread of more and more digital services around them.
2hire – Technology and Features
2hire enables mobility operators and service providers to harness the built-in technology of connected cars, digitise the user experience, and provide the newest value-added services around. 2hire built Adapter, the standardized API layer to communicate with all vehicles of the major car manufacturers, creating mobility services with a single and universal access point. 2hire collaborates with leading car manufacturers to exploit the full potential of connected vehicles and bring up innovative services around vehicle’s connectivity.
The current mobility scenario presents a duality between non-connected and natively connected vehicles. 2hire is leading the transition from non-connected to natively connected vehicles by providing one solution to integrate them all.
For non-connected vehicles, 2hire offers a proprietary hardware solution that can be integrated into a vehicle enabling data reading and interactions, with a non-invasive installation that can be performed by non-skilled users in less than 10 minutes and is currently compatible with every model in the market.
While when it comes to natively connected vehicles, 2hire partners with manufacturers to integrate natively connected vehicles and help carmakers shape the solution around new mobility players’ needs.
Upcoming moves
2hire aims to lead the connected vehicle revolution by positioning itself as the leading technology solution which makes it possible to manage fleets of connected and non-connected vehicles with the same integration.
2hire is seizing this transitional period in which many market players have, or will have soon, hybrid fleets, composed of both connected and non-connected vehicles, to gain market share and provide its solution by making it possible to manage both kind with one single integration.