Motorcycle app taking off
Kirk Penton - May 15, 2019 - Biz Releases

Spring has arrived, which means so has motorcycle season.

Tonit, therefore, is ready to welcome many more riders to its burgeoning community.

The Kelowna-based company launched its app for motorcycle riders last November, and its user base has been growing like a weed. The free app has had more than 60,000 downloads and now boasts 50,000 active users. The company was founded in 2016, and the app became a reality thanks to $600,000 that was raised through Kelowna’s Atrium Ventures.

“We’re starting to really take off,” Tonit founder and CEO Jason Lotoski said. “We’ve almost tripled our user base in the last three months, and over the next two or three months we’re going to be quadrupling it from what we’re at right now. It’s just exponentially taking off since it’s kind of the spring-summer season. We’ve really upped the ad budget, and we’re getting a lot of organic (users) as well. It’s really doing well.”

Lotoski created Tonit to bring the motorcycle community together. It encourages riders to meet other motorcyclists, get together for rides and share your adventures. Tonit’s 12 employees, who work out of an office on the third floor of Kelowna’s Innovation Centre, have been adding new features to the app continuously. A popular addition has been its clubs feature, which “took off like wildfire,” Lotoski said. “It allows the motorcycle club owners and any rider to join these localized clubs and socialize and find local meet-ups and rides based on them as a rider.”

Another unique touch is a “community champion” reaches out to welcome people who download the app and sign up for Tonit.

“We show the riders that this is a real community for motorcycles, and it’s about respect and that sense of belonging within the community,” Lotoski said.

Tonit will launch a premium version of its app on July 5, giving users a chance to upload videos, earn accolades and enjoy more of the app’s gamification features. A crash-alert system is currently in production.

Lotoski said Tonit will also be hosting a big motorcycle show in the Okanagan on Aug. 18.

 


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