Israel-based wheelshare specializes in developing innovative technological solutions for wheelchair rentals and optimized transport systems on an international scale. At the core of these solutions are automated wheelchair rental stations installed in hospitals, providing patients, visitors, and hospital staff with instant, convenient access to wheelchairs.
The company’s stations operate in approximately 95% of Israeli hospitals, as well as in dozens of hospitals across seven European countries. Over the past three years, wheelshare’s solutions have enabled hundreds of thousands of people to enjoy complimentary access to high-quality wheelchairs through more than a million loans. In addition to hospitals, the company also operates in airports and public spaces and plans to expand these activities.
Background
For many years, the importance of accessibility has been widely recognized as a fundamental condition for promoting inclusion, freedom of movement, equal rights, and equal opportunities for people with disabilities. It is enshrined in laws and regulations and actively influences the design of public spaces, which are gradually becoming more accessible, equitable, and user-friendly. Physical accessibility isn’t just a technical goal—it is an essential component for realizing the right to full participation in society.
In recent decades, society has seen improvements in accessibility infrastructure, as well as significant demographic shifts. Increased life expectancy and a longer period of active, independent living resulted in the emergence of a new, growing population: people coping with partial or temporary disabilities. These individuals don’t use wheelchairs on a regular basis, but occasionally require their use in certain everyday situations, such as hospital visits, navigating around an airport, visiting a museum, or attending a public event that requires extended walking. Sometimes, the need stems from a temporary period of rehabilitation after an injury or surgery, and sometimes from fatigue, pain, or difficulty with prolonged movement related to age or a medical condition.
This group spans all ages, sectors, and medical definitions, but all of its members have one thing in common: the practical and functional need for temporary mobility support. Therefore, accessibility is no longer a topic relevant only to a minority group; it is, or will be, relevant to many of us at one point or another in life. Available, simple, and intuitive accessibility solutions will allow everyone to maintain independence and dignity, and fully participate in activities in public spaces, even when mobility is temporarily impaired.
The challenge
wheelshare’s solution is designed precisely for those who only require wheelchair use in specific situations, not daily. The company chose to start with the hospital market.
Every day, tens of millions of people worldwide visit hospitals. They come in due to injury, illness, or scheduled treatment and need to cover long distances to reach the relevant department. For them, a wheelchair is a basic and simple necessity, but hospitals struggle to ensure the continuous availability of wheelchairs, and finding one often becomes an almost impossible task.
This problem became apparent to Israel Kasirer, founder and CEO of wheelshare, when he served as Deputy Director of the Oncology Department at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. One morning, he encountered a patient’s son who had waited over an hour for a wheelchair to help transfer his father from their car to the treatment center.
The incident prompted Kasirer to investigate the issue thoroughly, and he discovered that providing access to wheelchairs is a major operational challenge in all hospitals in Israel and worldwide. The reasons are numerous: theft (approximately 30% of the wheelchair inventory is stolen each year, according to hospital estimates), wear and tear, damage, or “disappearance” within the facility. The result is consistently poor service for patients, delays in treatment and examination schedules, and wasteful allocation of human resources on locating, collecting, and maintaining wheelchairs.
Establishing a dedicated internal system for locating, maintaining, and tracking wheelchairs is expensive and complex. Hospitals are therefore forced to purchase more and more inexpensive wheelchairs and employ staff to collect them from parking lots and departments. This expensive and unsustainable approach does not provide a real improvement to the patient experience.
Solution and opportunity
Kasirer set out to find solutions to the problem, starting in Israel and expanding globally. To his surprise, he discovered that although most hospitals globally faced the same difficulty, no single effective solution existed. He then teamed up with Meir Slater, and together they founded wheelshare in 2018. They faced challenging guiding principles in designing the product: making quality wheelchairs accessible to anyone in need, at any time, simply and quickly; efficiently utilizing time, money, and human resources; and all without requiring payment from users.
At the core of the company’s solution are automated wheelchair rental stations, strategically placed in hospitals and funded by them through a B2B model.
Using the stations is easy and intuitive: patients and visitors can approach any of the stations throughout the hospital, leave a deposit via credit card (to ensure that the wheelchair is returned after use), and use the wheelchair free of charge for the first four hours, with a nominal fee of NIS 5 for every additional hour. The hourly fee incentivizes immediate returns after use, thereby allowing for maximum utilization of the inventory. However, it should be noted that the average usage time is about three hours, so the number of paying users is very low.
The first hospital to recognize the potential of this revolutionary service was Tel Aviv Medical Center (Ichilov), where wheelshare’s first four stations were installed. In 2019, the company signed a contract with Clalit Health Services, and by the end of that year, wheelshare rental stations were installed in all of Clalit’s hospitals. Today, the company operates in 95% of the medical centers in Israel.
International regulatory permits have paved the way for impressive global expansion. To date, the company operates in dozens of hospitals in seven European countries and recently won a tender from the AP-HP network, which operates 40 hospitals in France and was recognized as an authorized supplier for the NHS, England’s national health services.
The impact of this service is as clear as it is significant. Over the past three years, approximately one million loans have been recorded worldwide, with only sixteen wheelchairs stolen—a negligible amount compared to the past. User satisfaction is consistently measured at around 94%, and hospitals report a significant reduction in expenses for procurement, wear and tear, and repairs, along with savings in staff work hours, which are now dedicated to patient care.
The success of the model in hospitals has opened up additional avenues for the company’s development and expansion.
The first, driven by demand from the field, was to expand the service to meet the needs of inter-hospital transport systems. Addressing this need required wheelshare to take a technological leap in software to enable the system to synchronize with the hospital’s computerized transport management systems. Sixteen wheelchair stations have already been installed at Tel Aviv Medical Center (Ichilov), where hospital employees use their ID tags to retrieve wheelchairs and manage the entire transport system. Following this successful implementation, a similar system will soon be deployed in several other hospitals.
The second avenue is expansion into additional segments. The main one is the transportation sector, with a focus on airports that face problems similar to those encountered by hospitals. The system has been successfully implemented at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel and Alicante Airport in Spain, and many airports worldwide are expressing interest.
In addition, the company is expanding its services to other public spaces, such as public beaches (Rishon LeZion), cemeteries (Kiryat Shaul and Herzliya), parks (Herzliya Park, Gan beIvrit Rishon LeZion), shopping centers (Whitewater in Ireland), and is even in advanced stages of installing stations at Disneyland Paris.
The company efficiently manages its extensive international operations with a small and dedicated team of fewer than 30 employees in two hubs, Israel and Ukraine, providing 24/7 service and support to clients and users in all relevant languages. An internal team of technicians in Israel and maintenance teams abroad are responsible for logistics, billing, and ongoing maintenance services, including the supply of spare parts and the frequent cleaning and sanitization of the wheelchairs, which are essential for preventing infections.
In mid-2025, wheelshare completed a funding round of $8 million, led by Menomadin Foundation, Shagrir Group, Tene Capital through its portfolio company Pegasus, Carasso Group, and private investors. The company will invest these resources in enhancing its operations in Europe and expanding into new markets, aiming to make public spaces accessible to more people with disabilities worldwide.
wheelshare is committed to the principles of sharing economy, contributes to the environment, and is dedicated to promoting inclusion, equal rights, and equal opportunities—Menomadin’s fundamental values. In an act of faith and commitment, Haim Taib, president and founder of the Menomadin Foundation, joined the wheelshare board of directors to help amplify its positive impact.
