COFIDES grants €2.5M loan to Bike Ocasión to scale circular-economy bike refurbishment

What's the deal? COFIDESDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has granted a €2.5 million loan to Bike Ocasión, a Spanish company that buys, refurbishes, and resells second-hand bicycles.

The financing comes from the Fondo de Impacto Social (FIS) and will fund a new refurbishment centre in Madrid plus three stores, starting in Alfafar, Valencia.

The goal: reach up to 24,000 refurbished bikes a year over the coming years.

Why now? Founded in 2015 and based in Terrassa, Bike Ocasión has become Spain's leader in second-hand bikes and one of Europe's biggest operators.

Demand for affordable, sustainable transport is rising. Refurbishing avoids manufacturing new bikes, a resource-heavy process that emits roughly 174kg of CO₂ per unit.

In 2025, the company says it prevented 1,533 tonnes of CO₂ emissions.

What could go wrong? The deal is debt, not equity, so Bike Ocasión must generate steady cash flow to repay the loan while funding expansion.

Scaling refurbishment to 24,000 bikes annually depends on a reliable supply of used bikes and sustained demand across new physical stores.

The signal: The €400 million FIS, fuelled by NextGenerationEU funds, is increasingly steering public capital toward circular-economy ventures that can prove both environmental impact and financial sustainability. By backing an early-stage operator like Bike Ocasión with debt rather than a grant, COFIDES is testing whether state money can scale measurable climate outcomes while crowding in private capital.

Image credit: "Cycling in Melbourne - Repairing wheel at Commuter Cycles" by John Englart (Takver) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/.