Cake\Sweden
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Cake (CAKE 0 Emission AB) was a Swedish maker of high-design electric motorcycles and mopeds, founded in 2016 in Stockholm by Stefan Ytterborn. Its model families - the Kalk, Ösa, Makka and later Bukk - were lightweight electric off-road and urban bikes sold in eight major cities across seven markets. The company raised about $74 million ($14 million Series A in 2019, $60 million Series B in 2021 led by Swedish pension fund AMF) and sold around 6,000 bikes. It filed for bankruptcy in Sweden on 1 February 2024 after a funding round collapsed; the brand and intellectual property were acquired out of bankruptcy by Norway's Brages Holding, which restarted a much smaller operation.
02 / Cake\Sweden FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Cake collapsed after a bridging funding round fell through on 31 January 2024 when a lead investor withdrew: CEO Stefan Ytterborn blamed a combination of the recession and a dead late-stage venture capital market, saying there were no takers for the round the company needed. Underlying the collapse, the company never reached the scale needed for profitability - it sold about 6,000 bikes a year but needed 7,500 to 10,000; it also issued two recalls in late 2023 (a steering-column risk on a moped and a battery-fire risk on the flagship Kalk) and could not make payroll for its 139 employees. The company filed for bankruptcy on 1 February 2024. The brand survived: Norway's Brages Holding acquired the brand and IP out of bankruptcy and restarted a much smaller operation.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Bankruptcy
Fylgia: Cake 0 Emission AB declared bankrupt 1 Feb 2024 with trustee Jakob Callmander; bid process opened for the e-motorcycle business. TechCrunch 2 Feb 2024: CEO Stefan Ytterborn confirmed the filing to TechCrunch.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Cake was founded in 2016 in Stockholm by Stefan Ytterborn to build high-design electric motorcycles and mopeds (Kalk, Ösa, Makka, Bukk).
- 02
It raised about $74 million ($14M Series A in 2019, $60M Series B in 2021 led by AMF) and sold around 6,000 bikes, but needed 7,500-10,000 bikes per year to reach profitability.
- 03
From late 2023 to early 2024, the company issued recalls (a steering-column risk on a moped; battery-fire risk on the flagship Kalk) and could not make payroll for its 139 employees.
- 04
A bridging funding round fell through on 31 January 2024 when a lead investor withdrew; Ytterborn blamed the dead late-stage venture market and the recession.
- 05
Cake filed for bankruptcy in Sweden on 1 February 2024 (event already recorded; kept as-is).
- 06
The brand and IP were acquired out of bankruptcy by Norway's Brages Holding (CEO Espen Digernes), which restarted a much smaller operation under former CTO Petra Färm, keeping the bikes and support network alive.
- 07
The post-mortem: premium electric motorcycles need scale to be profitable, and 6,000 bikes a year was not enough; when late-stage venture funding dried up, a boutique hardware maker with high fixed costs had no path to profitability.
- 08
No reliable realized loss figure with clear subject, period and basis has been disclosed; about $74M raised is funding, not a loss.