The ANCIIAN concept started, in Aalen, Germany, while our co-founder, João, was volunteering in a bicycle shop. "Is there a better way?" is the question that started it all. Or so the legend says...

"Is our good idea really that good?". With that need for validation in mind, we applied to University of Minho's main business ideas competition - "SpinUm", and reached the finals. Okay, it seems it is, let's keep pushing and see what happens.  

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So, we know we can be competitive in the general innovation landscape. Are we competitive amongst other innovative bicycle projets? ABIMOTA's national ideas competition was the absolute confirmation, as we reached the podium.

Around this time, João and Bruno, came to realize that without assembling a capable and ambitious team we would not go that far. So, in June 2023, we invited the brightest minds in our engineering campus to tackle this challenge with us. (And called them... "The Avengers")

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Not surprisingly, our wonderful team had a tremendous impact in our product and growth. Product development speed essentially 3x and all the loose ends started falling into place.   

After a number of iterations in the product and business model, we thought it was time to validate the improvements once again. This time  in "Startup Point" competition. Brilliant projects took part in this competition and it was very close, however we were once again in the podium.

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In November of 2023, we thought it was the appropriate time to take our brand from the shadows of innovation contests  into the real world.

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This time, it was not planned, we promise. ANCIIAN Bicycles was selected to represent Universidade do Minho in the "BfK Ideas final", organized by the National Association for Innovation (ANI). Our project was presented in the Green Transition category.

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From March 2024 onward, the ANCIIAN project became the company ANCIIAN Bicycles, Lda. (And yes, the white outfits arrangement was a requirement for our group picture).

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