Bird is trading too low for the NYSE, Zomato and Careem continue acquisitions in the food space and robots in SF taking your money.

Bird gets a warning from the NYSE and its President steps down (sort of), Cruise starts paid robotaxi service in San Francisco, Ola is closing down business units to focus, Dott trials a wheelchair e-scooter, Bridj in the UK, FreeNow lingering in Romania. In Pakistan, Jeeny expanding, Bykea raising, VavaCars closing, Careem launches carpooling. Zomato acquires Blinkit, Careem acquires Munch:On, Deliveroo starts ads and Just Eat takeaway raises commissions. And a brand new electric SPAC by Polestar. This and more on #movingpeople. Let’s start. 

Ride-hailing / DRT / car-sharing 🚙🚘

The US ‘larger-than-car’ shared-ride market is growing. Share Mobility, a fixed-route commute transport platform, raised $12M in series A to support growth, people and product. The Ohio-founded company is building on enterprises expanding into the Midwestern and Southern states for its growth. This raise follows last month’s announcement by Texas-based Fetii, on-demand group ridesharing, that it has been accepted to Y-Combinator's new cohort, after raising $500K in a crowdfunding campaign. 

Jeeny, a Middle Eastern ride-hailing service, is expanding to Pakistan, joining current competition Uber/Careem and InDriver. Formerly known as ‘Easy Taxi’, the company is currently active in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. 

Bykea, Pakistani bike-hailing and delivery, raised $10M. Funds will be used to expand transport and logistics solutions for the middle-class and to develop fintech use cases, such as cash-on-delivery, cash-pickup and verification services. 

Is Free Now staying in Romania or not? On May 25th the company announced it will be pulling out of the country by the end of June, but now is postponing without a deadline. Back in November 2019 Free Now acquired Clever as a way to enter the market.  

Gojek is not(!) entering Malaysia. A Gojek branded vehicle was spotted in the country, but the company says the vehicle was only used for a marketing campaign that will be presented in other existing markets. Not Malaysia. 

🇮🇳Ola, which is also experiencing declining sales of its Ola Electric scooters, is shutting down Ola Cars, its used car business and Ola Dash, its q-commerce platform. The company will continue to focus on making electric scooters and cars, cell manufacturing, financial services and its ride-hailing business. 

VavaCars, an online used car platform, is closing its Pakistani operations. VavaCars raised $50M back in october 2021 and at the time had 300 employees in Pakistan and Turkey. The company will focus its energy on Turkey; read the CEO message on leaving Pakistan and then a post about staying in Turkey. These two posts are a day apart, which feels very uneasy. 

Gozem, the West  & Central Africa super-app, signed a $10M partnership with the ‘International Finance Corporation’, a World Bank organisation. The deal will allow 6,000 moto-taxi drivers in Benin and Togo access to vehicle financing. 

A new DRT player is entering the UK market - Bridj has been chosen to manage transport for Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth games. Bridj, an Australian based company, is a lightweight player in the global DRT industry. It has a nice website. 

Insights from a DRT service in Hertfordshire, operated by Padam and Uno Bus: 12K rides in 10 months using 3 vehicles, or ±10-15 riders per day per vehicle; 25% of riders are between the ages of 11-25 and high use from a local college demonstrates that DRT bus service isn’t just for the older, with people with concessionary passes making up only 10% of trips. 80% use the app, 15% online and only 5% book by phone. 

Uber announced that 15,000 drivers signed to rent a Tesla via its Hertz partnership. You can book a rental car from Hertz via the Lyft app. Uber agrees to Australian minimum pay, similar to agreements in the UK and Canada. Careem launches corporate carpooling in Pakistan. Miles Mobility, German car-sharing (renting), is expanding to Belgium. door2door, a SWVL company, is providing transportation for the G7. Ikea launches carpooling with Liftango. The services will run in Australia, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Canada. 

Micromobility 🛴🚲

Bird gets a warning from NYSE because its stock price is too low. Bird SPACed at ±$8.4 per share back in November 2021, but now (June 29th) trading at ±$0.42. NYSE requires class A common stocks to trade over $1 in any 30 consecutive days. Bird has failed to do so. The company isn’t being delisted, it has 6 months to fix the situation. VanderZanden (founder CEO President) is being replaced as President, but will still stay CEO and chair of the Board of Directors. 

New York selects Bird, Lime and VeoRide for its e-scooter pilot. Each company will deploy 1,000 e-scooters in the Bronx, for a period of 1 year. Dott and Omni partner to launch e-scooter for wheelchair use. The 1st prototype was displayed in Paris this week. 

Autonomous 🤖

Cruise started its robotaxi service in San Francisco. The company has been running a free service in the area since February, and has now started charging fares. There is no driver. The service is running with 30 robotaxis covering an area of 20 square miles. I’m waiting for these guys to come to London. Not everything is going smoothly - on Tuesday night some cars just turned off, creating traffic. 

May Mobility and Softbank in partnership to implement autonomous service in Japan. First driverless shuttle in Oklahoma, by Navya. AV companies urging California to lift its ban on heavy-duty self-driving trucks. Meanwhile in Texas, legislation is favourable. Einride driverless electric pod approved for US public roads; the vehicle is remotely operated, with no driver on the vehicle (and there is no room for a driver). Ferrari will never make autonomous cars. That actually makes a lot of sense. 

Delivery 🍽🧺

Zomato completes the acquisition of Blinkit for $568M in an all-stock deal. Blinkit has been struggling lately (or, as any other quick-delivery company, had been struggling from the start, but now VC money has dried up. Sorry.), and has lost its unicron status. In this acquisition, Zomato enters the Indian grocery and quick-delivery markets. Zomato-Blinkit face competition from Swiggy and Zepto. 

Careem acquires UAE’s Munch:On, a food delivery platform. The company specialises in subscription-based food delivery that connects customers to meals at a discount by tapping into excess kitchen capacity. The service will discontinue and integrate into the Careem Super-App. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed; we know that Munch:On raised $6M so far. 

Gorillas left Belgium and sold part of its activity to Efarmz, a local organic and seasonal products delivery firm. To achieve profitability, the company is looking to partner with large supermarkets. 

Deliveroo is opening a retail media network, i.e. advertising. From July when you open the app you could see ads, and couriers from dark stores and kitchens will also deliver content or samples with your order. Deliveroo expanding work with Lloyds Pharmacy, from 40 to 150 stores in the next couple of months. 

JustEat Takeaway increases European restaurant commission by 1 percentage point, due to inflation and higher operational costs. In the UK, where it faces competition from Deliveroo and UberEats, prices remain the same. 

Amsterdam court orders to shut down a Gorillas dark store or pay a €20K fine. The ‘store’ failed to meet the legal definitions of a ‘retail store’. Zapp pulls out of Amsterdam. Careem launches food ‘group order’ in Jordan, allowing people to invite friends to a joint order. Philippine's FoodPanda changes name to Delivery Hero Philippines, after being acquired back in 2016. 

A DoorDash patent indicates an autonomous delivery vehicle. Back in November DoorDash said it considers use of AVs for the middle mile use case. Domino Pizza pilots driverless deliveries with Nuro in Houston. All Nippon Airways partner with Wingcopter to bring drone delivery to Japan. 

Flying cars 🚁☁️

New York to introduce a bill that bans non-essential helicopter flights from NYC heliports. No tourism, and no commuting. It is estimated that each day there are 160 such flights, 4,000 a month. While this affects only city controlled heliports (three in total) this is a good reminder that mobility is heavily dependent on regulation. Take note eVTOLS. 

Autonomous helicopter in Canada. A normal helicopter (and not an eVTOlicopter), but a good sign in the direction the industry wishes to head. 

Manufacturers 🛺

Polestar, an electric vehicle maker which originated from Geely and its subsidiary Volvo Cars, has just SPACed on the NASDAQ. The company plans to expand and become profitable. Polestar has 55,000 vehicles on road in China, Europe and the US and has the backing of a global car maker. But like any other SPAC, it's struggling. 

VW is betting to surpass Tesla by 2025, pointing out that factory expansion plans are going to ‘drain’ Tesla’s strength. In 2021, Tesla delivered 936K electric cars vs. WV’s 453K, which actually indicates that VW might be able to make that target as early as 2024. 

Rivian is patenting a drone to help drive off-road and is introducing its 1st fast charging network. GM’s Brightdrop delivers 150 electric vans to Fedex. 

In other news 📰

Stagecoach is set to delist from the London Stock Exchange at the end of June, following the DWS acquisition; the company just reported its annual earnings (year-end is April), with pre-tax profits more than doubling year-on-year to £44.1M. Good for DWS. 

3 out of 4 of road deaths are men. Before the age of 18, 96% of those killed are boys. A long read on the gender difference in road accidents.