Vail Valley tech startup Rever takes a big leap forward, gaining a worldwide client base for its motorcycle app
Special to the Daily
EAGLE — An Eagle tech startup raised $1.2 million in its last round of funding, but that doesn’t mean the creators of the motorcycle app have cash to burn.
“The money either gets you to the next step, or it doesn’t and you go out of business. We’re still here,” said Justin Bradshaw, co-founder of Rever with Mark Roebke, a motorcycle ride-tracking app.
Rever (pronounced with a short E, like the sound your motorcycle makes when you crank back the throttle) launched in 2015, headquartered in Eagle’s Colorado Workspace, sort of a business incubator for local startups. BMW was one of its original investors.
Venture capitalists and angel investors, including some from Google and Colorado’s rural venture fund, fueled this latest fundraising round. Some of their backers ride motorcycles; some don’t.
“People who ride see things differently,” Bradshaw said.
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Rever is focused on building a global brand, Bradshaw said, and global they’re becoming.
“We want to be the brand along for every ride,” Bradshaw said.
They have 1 million users in 141 countries, mapping tens of millions of miles of rides, he said.
Local guys doing good
Bradshaw grew up in the Vail Valley riding dirt bikes and spins his own wrenches. He spent six years working on Butler Maps, waterproof maps of the world’s best motorcycle rides.
He said he was riding along when the idea for Rever fell out of sky and landed on his helmet — sort of.
Motorcyclists started asking Bradshaw how to digitally retrieve stuff from their Butler print maps. He explained that they’d have to buy a Garmin and Garmin software.
But why, he wondered.
He was talking with Robke with Resort Technology Partners, trying to get a fix on how to make the app do what he wanted it to do. Robke had sold RTP, rides motorcycles and was looking for his next big thing. Rather than explain it to Bradshaw, he’d show him. That’s more or less how Robke got involved in creating Rever, a cloud-based system.
Kat Connor runs the workspace they’re in, and also does computer graphics. If there’s a great graphic on your Rever app, chances are Connor created it.
What Rever is
Rever is a navigation and ride-tracking app for motorcyclists. It just launched its first connected device, theft-prevention hardware that you fasten to your motorcycle. It alerts you through Rever if someone is touching or stealing your motorcycle. It will also tell you where your stolen motorcycle was taken, making it pretty easy for the police to find it.
There’s a free version of Rever. A premium version costs $60 a year.
Rever also features audio navigation tools, tracks mileage, speed, elevation gain and other metrics.
Connor looks around the room at tech genius motorcycles riders and smiles when she says, “There are ways to hide the speed information.”
Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 and rwyrick@vaildaily.com.