YT Industries is a brand that quickly made its name in the cycling industry for providing accessibly priced bikes for ‘young talent‘. From there, the brand sponsored many a successful athlete, such as Vali Holl and Andreu Lacondeguy, both of whom rode YT bikes to achieve incredible results. Oh, and remember the ad that starred Christopher Walken?

For a while, it looked like YT Industries had the world at its feet, but back in July, the brand entered tumultuous times, announcing that it had entered self-administration and was seeking new investors. That move was made crediting discount wars, US tariffs, and citing COVID as the “perfect storm”. Back then, entering self-administration meant restructuring the brand to try to keep it running.

However, we were assured that the brand was seeking and talking to new investors in a bid to cement YT Industries’ future.

2025 yt industries decoy ht.jpg
2025 yt industries decoy ht (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)
2025 yt industries decoy ht.jpg, by Liam Mercer

Just last week, things took a turn for the worse as YT had announced insolvency. The people turning the cogs couldn’t find suitable investment, despite several offers.

As a result, YT Industries’ founder, Markus Flossmann, is seeking to buy back the business, similar to the situation with Kona last year. Now, Flossmann and the creditors’ committee is in the process of wrapping up some contracts, and we’re told that we can expect a relaunch of YT Industries, in whatever form, in the future.

Upon asking the folk at YT Industries about the purchase, whether or not UK orders will be honoured, and that the YT US subsidiary is unaffected, they replied with a statement from Markus Flossmann. 

It reads: “YT Industries’ main shareholder (PE investor) announced at the beginning of July that they would no longer finance the company, which forced us to file for self-administration insolvency. That gave us three months to find a new investor.

“Unfortunately, the offers we received were an absolute joke and not worth considering. That’s why I decided to buy the company back myself. The creditors’ committee has already approved my offer, and we are now in the process of finalizing the contracts in order to relaunch the business under the new setup. As you can imagine, this is anything but a small undertaking, both financially and in terms of effort.

“To ensure that no work is performed by employees that the old company would no longer be able to pay for, the majority of the staff have been released during this transition period. A small team remains in place to answer customer inquiries and process orders. We hope to conclude the negotiations as quickly as possible to minimize the impact on our customers.

“It’s important to note that this only concerns YT Industries GmbH in Germany. Our U.S. subsidiary is not affected, business there continues as usual, and there are no restrictions.”

While Flossman’s statement confirms that a skeleton staff has been left to process orders and deal with enquiries, the part about “the majority of the other staff” is less clear; however, our own source at YT confirmed to us that they have now left the business, and under a Linkedin post from marketing expert Tyler Barnes – who says that YT’s troubles are “a warning shot for the cycling and outdoor industry” – another former employee claimed that “…basically everyone has been let go with little intention to bring anyone back.” 

Although there are some disgruntled customers complaining of missing orders and a lack of communication under posts on YT’s Instagram and Facebook pages, it is currently safe to assume all pending orders will be processed (with delays). A review of the YT Industries Decoy SN 29 Core 4 e-MTB was published on this website just six days ago, with all models currently showing a notice saying the bikes will be ‘available soon’.

How soon? We can’t be sure, but we’ve contacted Flossmann for an update on how the buy-back is progressing. There looks to be light at the end of the tunnel – but, with its reputation tarnished, will YT Industries bounce back in the way we hope it will?

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