Spin, an app maker which claims to be the first to debut the stationless bike share concept in the US, raised $8 million in a Series A funding round.

It wants to use the funding to accelerate hiring, expand deployment of its smart bike share system in more cities and “build one of the largest mobile IoT and urban transportation infrastructure deployments in the world”.

“We’ll use this round to grow our supply chain, improve our hardware, and assemble a talented technical team to track and manage our bike share fleet at scale,” said Spin CTO and co-founder Zaizhuang Cheng (pictured).

Spin’s bikes are located via its app, and then unlocked by scanning a QR code.

The bikes are equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, and solar panels.

Spin’s technology requires no fixed or specialised racks and allows bikes to be parked anywhere which is legal and responsible.

The round was led by Grishin Robotics with participation from Exponent and CRCM, along with Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever and Dropbox investor Matt Brezina.