Helbiz started as a shared micromobility company, but has since expanded to include ghost kitchens, media streaming, and most recently taxi service. The company reported its second quarter earnings Monday after the bell. The startup was the first scooter operator to hit the ground running publicly through the SPAC routeand many in the industry wish it wasn’t forever meh income statements.
Since Helbiz’s public debut in August 2021, his income statements showed a company that was spending dwindling cash reserves, not bringing in enough revenue to offset its high operating costs, and continuing to branch out from core operations into new and sometimes quirky business units.
While Helbiz’s revenue was up slightly quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, Monday’s report told a similar story.
Before we delve into the finances, a little context. At the end of June Helbiz has signed a letter of intent to acquire Wheels, another shared micromobility operator, by the end of the year. In the midst of this, there were several occasions when Helbiz employees in US and Serbian offices had to wait for delayed payments. Sources told TechCrunch that apart from delayed salaries, Helbiz suffers from chronically late deliveries of scooters and a general lack of company structure.
Despite the weak earnings, Helbiz shares are trading higher than its public market rival Bird, which also reported earnings today. Today, at $1.43 after hours, Helbiz is up 12.6%. This is largely due to Helbiz’s CEO The acquisition of 252,636 shares by Salvatore Palella of the company at an average price of $3 — a deal that is valued at $757,908. Also, this figure is still a far cry from the $10.92 at which Helbiz opened.
Helbiz Q2 2022 Financial Statements
Helbiz ended the second quarter with $4.4 million in revenue, up 46% from the same period last year and up 33% from last quarter. Mobility, or micromobility shared rides, accounted for more than half of total revenue in the second quarter at $2.7 million, up from $1.6 million in the first quarter.
Helbiz reported about 1.2 million trips in the second quarter, nearly double the number of trips in the first quarter, but only a slight year-over-year increase. Unlike BirdHelbiz does not appear to report the number of vehicles it has on site nor its trips per vehicle per day.
The remaining $1.7 million in revenue came from “incremental contributions from Media and Kitchen,” Helbiz Chief Financial Officer Giulio Profumo said in a statement.
In the third quarter of 2021, Helbiz launched Helbiz Live, a sports streaming platform that currently shows Italian Serie B soccer, NCAA soccer and basketball, and MLB games. Helbiz expects to generate $6 million during the first season of Series B, some of which should already be realized in the second quarter of 2022.
Around the same time Helbiz launched Live, it also introduced Helbiz Kitchen, a ghost kitchen delivery service. The company has been coy about the revenue the new service has brought in, but Kitchen has clearly succeeded something. Helbiz said that in the first half of the year, revenue almost doubled sequentially. Of course, doubling from zero isn’t exactly a huge feat.
“Importantly, growth has been solid in our core mobility business and we are improving margins while reducing revenue mobility costs,” Profumo said. “Even with our focus on cost control, we are investing effectively and efficiently in talent, advertising, marketing and research and development to maintain our pace of expansion.”
Helbiz’s operating expenses did decrease slightly QoQ, but at $20.8 million, they nearly doubled year-over-year. Loss from operations narrowed to $16.4 million from $18 million in Q1, but Helbiz’s net loss of $19.7 million was almost flat QoQ.
The company ended the quarter with $2.5 million in cash, up from $1 million last quarter, but significantly less than $21 million in the same period last year. Helbiz was supposed to raise $10 million this quarter through a new issue of convertible notes. In July and August, Helbiz raised another $5 million to fund its “multiple growth opportunities,” according to Profumo.
In the first half of the year, Helbiz used about $4.7 million in cash to fund its micromobility operations. The company paid $3.5 million to vehicle manufacturers as deposits for e-bikes, electric scooters and electric mopeds, vehicles Helbiz expects to ship throughout the year. And while Helbiz’s acquisition of Wheels will be mostly stock, Helbiz put down a $1 million deposit to sign the letter of intent and invested $100,000 in operating licenses, which it has categorized as intangible assets.
“Looking forward, we will deploy more vehicles, seek more micromobility licenses and drive expansion in the Asia-Pacific region,” the CFO said. Helbiz recently launched shared e-scooter operations in Australia and expanded its existing fleets in the US and Italy.
The company did not provide guidance for the third quarter or the full year.