Swapfiets, the Dutch bicycle subscription company owned by Pon Holdings, has acquired Dance, a Berlin-based startup that rents e-bikes to city riders on a monthly subscription. Swapfiets announced the deal on 18 May 2026 from Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin. Terms were not disclosed.
Dance brings more than 11,000 e-bikes into the group. Swapfiets said the combined business now has more than 75,000 subscription e-bikes on the road, operates in 45 cities and has around 280,000 members riding city bikes and e-bikes. A post on Dance's own site put the combined membership at about 290,000.
Dance will continue as a separate brand. Co-founder and chief executive Christian Springub stays in his role and will lead Dance under the Swapfiets umbrella, and Dance's operational teams will keep serving its existing members.
What Dance built
Dance offers e-bikes on a subscription that covers the bike and its upkeep, and it built its service around a digital, touch-free customer journey rather than physical shops. Its members are concentrated in Paris, Berlin and Hamburg, according to the company's announcement to riders.
The startup was co-founded by Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, who earlier co-founded the music platform SoundCloud. Dealroom reported that Quidenus-Wahlforss is leaving with the sale and that Dance had raised about $47 million. The companies did not disclose Dance's headcount, revenue or the price Swapfiets paid. Dance said it had been working on its mission for more than six years.
“Our mission has always been to lead the movement to more liveable cities, and this acquisition allows us to accelerate that impact at a larger scale.”
Why Swapfiets is buying
Swapfiets started in the Netherlands in 2014, founded by three students from Delft, and calls itself the first bicycle-as-a-service company. Members pay a monthly fee for a working bike or e-mobility vehicle, and the company repairs or swaps it within 48 hours at no extra cost. Before the deal it operated in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Spain, Austria and the United Kingdom.
The main gain is in cities where Dance was strong. Swapfiets said the combination gives it a leading position in Paris and a much larger presence in Berlin and Hamburg. Marc de Vries, Swapfiets' chief executive, said the deal was about combining two teams as well as adding bikes, with the aim of putting a subscription bike in every bike rack in Europe's major cities.
Pon Holdings, the mobility group that owns Swapfiets and a range of consumer bike brands, supported the acquisition. Pon said it believes subscription models help increase cycling in cities. Its stated aim is to keep people, cities and industries moving efficiently and sustainably, and it said adding Dance fitted its goal of making cities more liveable.
Two brands, one owner
Swapfiets plans to run Dance and its own brand side by side. Swapfiets will remain the option for customers who want in-person service and physical stores, while Dance will target riders who prefer to manage everything through an app. The two companies said they would share practices in hardware and digital product design.
Dance told its members that the brand would continue and that they would gain from more operational support and shared expertise, with more chances to improve the bikes, the app and the service. It did not announce any changes to prices or plans.
Springub said Dance had been started to make sustainable travel the easy choice, and that combining Swapfiets' operations with Dance's digital approach would help change how people move around cities such as Paris and Berlin.
A consolidating e-bike market
The deal comes as Europe's e-bike sector consolidates after the boom of the pandemic years. Dealroom tied the sale to a wider trend in which bike subscription providers have been combining to reach the scale needed for profitability.
Subscription companies such as Swapfiets and Dance own and maintain their fleets and earn monthly fees, which makes the number of bikes on the road and the density of riders in each city central to their economics.
For Swapfiets, buying an established competitor in Paris and Berlin adds members and bikes in markets where it already operates, rather than opening new countries. The combined fleet figures given by the companies suggest Swapfiets had roughly 64,000 subscription e-bikes before the deal.
