Built by riding families. Ridden by yours.
Two families. Ten prototype bikes. A hunch that became Australia's best-value kids electric bike brand.
Zippi didn't start in a boardroom. It started with Toby getting off a plane with ten prototype electric bikes and a hunch.
He'd been building something overseas that nobody was doing in Australia yet — small, silent, properly engineered electric bikes for kids. Probably a bit early to the electric thing, in hindsight. But he was convinced.
The bikes that started everything.
What followed was two years of unofficial product testing. Backyards. Beaches. Camping trips. Driveways. The cousins (our kids) put those bikes through every kind of Australian weekend a kid can throw at one, and the bikes kept coming back for more.
By the end of 2017 we knew we had something great. Real Durability. Real Geometry. Real Engineering. Not a toy.
Too good to keep to ourselves.
On a Sunday night in 2018, around the dinner table, Toby's wife Carmen, his sister Laura, and her husband Mark finally said what everyone had been thinking. That night, Zippi got its name and a job — share what we'd found with as many Australian families as we could.
Our first product was the Zippi Ride 10" — silent, light enough to throw in the boot, properly engineered, and priced where regular families could actually afford one. That same model is still in the lineup today, and thousands of Aussie kids have learned to balance on one.
Two families. Still hands-on.
A decade of riding. Eight+ years as a business. We all work in the business — answering emails, packing boxes, occasionally getting outridden by our own children because we carry the same commitment that started Zippi in the first place - Raise Balanced Kids.
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Toby
The catalyst
Brought the original prototypes back from overseas in 2016 and started Zippi with the family on the back of two years of cousins riding them. From a motorcycle family — weekend rides etched into the way he runs the business. Still rides — usually being chased by the kids.
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Carmen
Co-founder
Toby's wife. Co-founder running operations and customer support. The original Zippi warehouse was Toby and Carmen's garage in 2018 — her car parked on the street because there wasn't room. The Aussie human on the other end of email when something goes wrong.
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Laura
Co-founder
Toby's sister. The Sunday-dinner conversation in 2018 that turned a family product-testing experiment into a business was largely her idea. From the same motorcycle family Toby grew up in — weekend rides built into childhood from both sides of the family tree.
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Mark
Co-founder
Laura's husband. Brings the motorcycle-family DNA from his side — both founding households grew up on weekend rides, which is why the brand reads the way it does and why our own kids tested the bikes for two years before we sold one.
From a garage to a warehouse.
The first Zippi warehouse was Toby and Carmen's garage. We never imagined needing more than that. In 2026 we moved into a proper warehouse, bigger than anything we ever pictured, and we only got there because the Zippi community kept showing up.
Parents telling other parents. Big brothers passing bikes down to little sisters. That's the whole engine and we love to see it every day!
Raise balanced kids.
Literally, and otherwise.
Balance first, then throttle, then brake. Confidence comes from doing it themselves.
Riding made us who we are. Two motorcycle families with weekend rides etched into childhood — the friends you keep, the way you handle problems, the quiet confidence of knowing you can read a track or a road.
Every Aussie kid deserves a shot at that. Cost shouldn't be the gatekeeper. That's the whole job.
Five things you won't find at the budget end or the premium end.
The middle of this market is mostly empty. We're here on purpose — and these are the choices that keep us here.
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Built by riding families, not by marketers.
Two motorcycle families started Zippi. Toby, Carmen, Laura and Mark — named, on the record. The competitive set is mostly faceless import operators or corporate sub-brands. Real names with real riding histories are a moat. We didn't manufacture it; it's just true.
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Stress-tested by our own kids before yours.
Two years of cousins on prototypes — backyards, beaches, camping trips — before a single bike was sold. The Zippi Ride 10" launched in 2018 with more real-world hours on it than most competitors' bikes have ever had. We still test the same way today with all of our models. Our own kids ride the new stuff first, hard, for months.
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Aussie accountable.
When something goes wrong with a Zippi, the email goes to a person whose own kid rides one. Spare parts ship from our Tasmanian warehouse, not a container in transit. Warranty conversations happen with a human, not a chatbot or some middleman. Premium imports can match the engineering; budget imports can match the price; almost nobody can match the accountability and service.
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Price is a feature, not an apology.
Most brands in this space defend their price or distract from it. We treat fair pricing as part of the product. No unnecessary markup, no celebrity endorsements, no aluminium-extruded marketing budget bs. We're proud of what a Zippi costs because we built the business to make that price possible.
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Built to grow with the family.
The Zippi Ride 10" that launched in 2018 is still on the road — on its second or third kid in plenty of households. Our range now spans ages 2 to 15, so the same family stays with us as the kid grows. Balance bike at three, the next size up at six, a proper kids' ebike at ten. Big brother to little sister, cousin to cousin, neighbour to neighbour.
So that's us. Two families, one warehouse, a lot of bikes, and a very simple idea.
We can't wait to ride
with your kids.
And the generations after them.
#raisebalancedkids