BackPedal doesn't pay out when your bike is stolen. It goes and gets it back

This story is based on public sources: verified revenue on TrustMRR, the BackPedal website and James Dunn's public profile on X. It is not an interview. Revenue figures were last checked on 5 November 2026.

When a bike is stolen in the UK, the usual outcome is an insurance claim and a new bike. BackPedal tries something else. It tracks the stolen bike and sends people to recover it.

The numbers

On TrustMRR, BackPedal shows $37,954 in MRR from 377 active subscriptions, with MRR up 49.2% over the last 30 days. All-time revenue is $1,523,114, and revenue in the last 30 days was $55,244. The figures are verified through a Stripe API key.

Monthly revenue over the past year ranged from $43,380 to $108,209. The highest month on the timeline was July 2026.

How it works

The company's About page explains the approach: "We do things back to front. Our mechanics fit covert GPS hardware to your bike on day one — at a time and place that suits you, kit included. If it's ever stolen, one call to our 24/7 hotline puts a case handler and our recovery team on it immediately. No queue, no claim form, no weeks of waiting — we go and get the bike back."

The kit is two devices hidden apart on the bike, a GPS tracker and a close-range beacon. The homepage lists the tracking kit at £89 and stolen bike recovery from £5.99 a month, with backup insurance from £1.49 a month extra. The insurance is provided by Sundays and covers a replacement "on the rare occasion we can't recover."

The pitch: thieves get nothing

BackPedal's figures, which are its own: more than 1,000 bikes recovered, a recovery rate above 80% over the last three months, and most bikes returned within about 48 hours. It compares that with "under 2%" recovered by police, citing UK crime survey data.

The point is bigger than single customers. "Recovering bikes means thieves don't profit — and that's how we shrink the incentive to steal in the first place," the site says. "We founded BackPedal because we were fed up with the status quo and wanted to tackle bike theft head on."

Its recovery work has been filmed for Sky, BBC One and Channel 4's Dispatches, according to the homepage.

The founder

James Dunn describes himself on X as "Co-founder @backpedalco | Building smarter theft recovery." The website says BackPedal was founded in 2022 and covers mainland UK.

Why it matters

BackPedal is not a pure software company. It combines hardware, a subscription and a team on the ground in London. That's harder to scale than an app, but it solves a problem people feel strongly about, and the verified revenue shows customers will pay every month for it.

Sources

1. TrustMRR, BackPedal. trustmrr.com/startup/backpedal-ltd
2. BackPedal homepage and About page. backpedal.co/about
3. James Dunn on X. x.com/dunn27_james