EY Entrepreneur of the Year - Kristjan Maruste
Photo by Karli Saul
Meet Kristjan Maruste, husband for a queen, a devoted father for 3 rockstars, freestyle e-scooter rider, cross-country skier, and sunrise runner. An Estonian tech-entrepreneur and mechanical engineer who is on a mission to make emissionless transport a reality in our cities. Besides being named a Forbes 30 Under 30 title recipient, he’s now selected as the EY Estonia Entrepreneur of the Year.
Maruste has made a name for himself as the Co-Founder and CEO of Kõu Mobility Group, a parent company for four global micromobility brands including Comodule, Tuul, Ampler Bikes and Äike, all focused on empowering emissionless transport in our cities. As Kristjan himself is horizontally integrated to the team (as also seen on the photo below), the Kõu Mobility Group is one of the very few vertically integrated vehicle companies in the world which allows it to take direct ownership of its product development, production, supply and other processes.
A spiritual entrepreneur: life is too short to do things you don't like
Maruste claims he has never worked a day in his life. While this might not be entirely accurate - he admits to picking blueberries in the forest as a child and working as a room attendant at a hotel for one summer when he was 13 or 14 years old. Kristjan's time as a room attendant taught him valuable lessons about human behavior.
"I realized that everyone's problems and joys are essentially on the same scale for themselves, but one person's problem, while big for them, may be small compared to someone else's," he explains.
He himself doesn't have many problems. "When you run a company, of course, there are always challenges, but that's a consciously taken challenge. I'm a very happy person," he says.
Also, his contributions to the sustainable transport industry have been nothing short of extraordinary which proves why Kõu Mobility Group was named as the Environment-friendly Company of Estonia in 2022. His vision and dedication to making our cities cleaner and more sustainable for the next generation is something we should all strive for.
Unlike many other startup founders, he also has a university education, having studied mechatronics - a combination of electronics and informatics - at INSA Lyon in France before finishing his master's degree at Tallinn University of Technology. His knowledge of these fields is extensive, but not enough to make things with his own hands.
Kristjan’s philosophy is one that many people could benefit from. Life is short, and it's important to find work that you enjoy. It's a philosophy that has served him well, and it's easy to see why.
All started from building racing cars
Prior to starting his own company, Maruste led the development and construction of six Formula Student racecar prototypes, including full-electric. He and his team proved to be one of the best young automotive engineers in the world, ranking TOP5 amongst 500 teams globally. Maruste realized that while Formula racing is fun, light electric vehicles are the best mode of transport for positive impact. That's when he and his team developed a data monitoring platform for light electric vehicles called Comodule, which creates a universal operating system for light electric vehicles, such as e-bikes and e-scooters and is named as the World's Best Connectivity & IoT provider in micromobility.
Read more about founding Tuul, Äike and merging with Ampler ›
Kõu family is very proud to have a fearless and love-driven leader like Kristjan. Let’s kõu! 💜
