Shared electric scooter startup Beam Mobility has installed hundreds of additional “Phantom” scooters in urban areas across Australia and New Zealand to avoid paying vehicle registration fees to local governments, according to a two-part report in The Australian.
Cities are imposing limits on the number of scooters operators can deploy to avoid cluttering roads and sidewalks with vehicles that can pose a danger to pedestrians.
The Australian's scoop includes Slack messages and other documents detailing how Beam provided false data to independent monitoring app Ride Report to underestimate the number of scooters in cities including Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Auckland and Wellington.
One of the documents, which lists Beam co-founder Dev Gangopadhyay's name, outlines plans for Beam to deploy 1,000 more scooters in the “best neighborhoods” of those cities, raking in an additional $150,000 in profits.
Beam recently raised $135 million from notable investors such as Affirma Capital and Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India and SEA).