Maysa Abadi is one of the Co-founders of Honeycomb, who are currently on our Accelerator Programme. Honeycomb was founded by team of engineers from Imperial College London during their studies and we’re excited to find out more about their journey!

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Tell us about Honeycomb – How did the idea begin, what’s your aim and who are the founders?

Honeycomb is developing the safest, smartest and most convenient storage and charging infrastructure for private e-scooters. We noticed e-scooter sales were rising significantly during the pandemic as people were quickly discovering that they are a clean, cost-effective and convenient way to get around the city. Unfortunately, many of our surveyed users experienced theft and range anxiety as there was no place for them to store and charge their vehicle whilst out in public.

Were a team of engineers from Imperial College London, passionate about applying our Master’s research to address key technological challenges that hinder the use of micromobility. Our vision is to establish this network across public and private locations such as gyms, supermarkets, office blocks and innovation campuses to encourage sustainable transport to and from these sites. Each pod will be equipped with Honeycomb’s universal, smart-charging technology that caters to >90% of e-scooter models on the market today, eliminating range anxiety and offering eco-friendly charging to reduce battery degradation, lithium-ion waste and grid strain. E-scooter users will be able to interact with Honeycomb pods using our mobile app, locating and unlocking pods as well as controlling and monitoring live charging.

Why did you and your founders decide to start your business whilst at university, what motivated you?

We were brought together during an entrepreneurship module we took in our last year of our degree. As part of the module we undertook extensive market research and saw a great demand for our service. We were in conversations with office providers and business parks who saw this as a great opportunity to reduce employee carbon footprint and encourage sustainable transport to their sites! This feedback, coupled with conversations with e-scooter users gave us the green light to keep pushing beyond the module.

6 months later we were awarded an Innovative Charging grant by Innovate UK and the Office for Zero Emission vehicles and raised £127K pre-seed funding with SFC Capital. These funds supported the development of our first locker and charging system prototype.

What have been your biggest struggles setting up your company as students?

We were working on Honeycomb whilst completing our final year masters project so there were times when we felt overwhelmed with the workload. In fact, our grant project interview was originally scheduled on the same day of our final exam!

What advice would you give to a student/recent graduate thinking of starting their own start-up?

• Reach out to as many people within your network as possible – the more opportunities to pitch your idea the better and remember to ask for feedback.
• Do your research! Know your industry, know your target customers
• Keep pushing and enjoy the journey

Why did you join the Geovation Accelerator and how has it helped you, so far?

The Geovation Accelerator Programme was exactly what we were looking for and has definitely exceeded our expectations. We joined a highly experienced and supportive community that has helped us further develop our software. We also participated in a variety of pitching, marketing, and fundraising workshops and had monthly 1-2-1 sessions where we outlined new targets for the next month, all of which were extremely insightful.

Find out more about Honeycomb here.