Blabla raises €100M, Bird out of chapter 11 and Zomato tests corporate park deliveries

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business  - consultancy dedicated to "All Things Mobility".  Next week Monday-Wednesday I’m in Amsterdam - DM me to meet face-to-face. 

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Blabla secures €100M in credit to fuel growth. Blabla operates carpooling and intercity buses in 21 countries, and in 2023 saw 80 million bookings, up 23% YoY; revenue of €253M, up 29% YoY; and reached EBITDA profitability. The CEO heavily hinted at future M&As as a means to grow: “We are looking at aggregators and online travel agencies for buses and trains… any distribution technology around ticketing will enable us to accelerate in a given market”. 

Didi introduces a negotiation model in Australia & NZ. This is an “open” negotiation feature, i.e. riders can suggest any price, much like InDrive and different from Uber, which uses a “fixed options menu” for its negotiating feature. The commission fee on these rides will be 10%, lower than the normal 18%. 

Also in Australia, taxi app GoCatch is bringing a case to supreme court alleging Uber intentionally harmed the company while it entered the country. The inactive GoCatch is trying to prove that Uber knew its ride-hailing service, launched in 2014, was illegal; that Uber hid information from regulators; and that Uber used spyware to target GoCatch operations. 

In Quebec, taxi drivers are suing the city in a class action suit. Uber entered Quebec in 2013, devaluating the value of government issued permits (medallions). In 2019 Quebec abolished the permit system; the class action suit claims that permit holders were not adequately compensated. 

Minneapolis: Uber & Lyft are asking drivers who rent via partnerships with Hertz to start returning vehicles; Lyft actively pushes for the state compromise; and a list of six ride-hailing players waiting to step-in. 

Kyrgyzstan declares Yandex Taxi as a “dominant player”; the company holds 86.3% of the market. Uber Black Cab starts to appear in selected instances, before the official launch. Yango introduces a new feature which helps Muslim drivers adhere to their prayer schedules. 

LA’s Metro Micro by RideCo surpassed 1.8 million rides. In April 2023 the scheme marked its 1 million milestone, which means that during the past year, the monthly average was 67,000 rides. Spare reaches 1 million trips completed by third-party vehicles on Open Fleets. Flixbus expands in Canada. Via is pushing CityMapper in France. 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Bolt partners with Traficar to offer car-sharing in Poland. Note that Traficar already has a similar partnership in place with FreeNow. 

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Micromobility 🚲🛴

Bird completed its Chapter 11 procedures and is now formally a private company named Third Lane Mobility Inc, which owns the combined assets of Bird and Spin. To the new website: Third Lane Mobility Inc.

Back in December 2023 Milan chose new micromobility suppliers for the next three years: Bolt, Voi and Dott to operate a total fleet of 6,000 scooters; Bolt, Dott, Lime, Ridemovi and Vento to operate a total fleet of 10,000 shared bikes, from the 16,000 the city wanted in the first place, which had plans to have eight different providers. But operators were not able to meet the safety requests the city mandated. In scooters, only Dott is active with 2,000 vehicles, with Bolt and Voi blocked, until pending appeal. In bikes, only 8,000 bikes are active. This is a blow to the city, which now runs on less than half the vehicles it set out for when it tendered. 

Ducky, micromobility logistics, expands to Paris. 

Delivery 🍽🧺

Waymo and UbeEats begin delivery service in Phoenix. UberEats already has autonomous delivery operations in six sites, partnering with Cartken, Motional, Nuro and Serve Robotics on those sites. Something interesting that caught my eye: the tipping function will be disabled; with US tips in the 15%-20% range, it makes economic sense to go autonomous. 

GrubHub launches FAM20, a 20 minute delivery for its paid members, doubling down on faster deliveries, the company's core proposition. There is an additional $1.49 fee per order, which, per the company, didn’t stop orders from increasing. 

Zomato is testing a new last-mile delivery service, inside corporate parks. This includes setting up “micro-hubs”, to which deliveries are brought by couriers from outside, and then delivered to the relevant office by the hub’s “walkers”. Interesting. 

The South Korean food market is on fire. In the last weeks Baemin and Coupang both started offering free deliveries, and now Yogiyo is offering the same.  

The Singaporean Competition and Consumer Commission revealed that it looked at the Grab-foodpanda potential merger while the talks were going on. The combined companies would have a 91%(!) share of the market. Grab alone has 63%. Even if the two companies would have agreed on price, it seems unlikely that the deal would have passed. 

Foodora, a Delivery Hero company, exits Slovakia. The Foodora brand continues to operate in seven European countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Wolt, a DoorDash company, set to expand operations to Uzbekistan. Careem launches food (and pay) in Abu Dhabi. DoorDash partners with Lowe’s, enters home improvement space. 

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Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Ghost Autonomy shuts down. “The path to long-term profitability was uncertain given the current funding climate and long-term investment required for autonomy development and commercialization”. Founded in 2017, the company raised a total of $220M. 

Karsan and Vy launch an autonomous bus in the city of Tampere, Finland. The L4 bus will operate on a 5.8km (3.6 miles) route, travelling at a speed of up to 40 km/h (25 mph) and serving 17 bus stops and crossing 20 pedestrian paths. 

NYC recently created a framework for robotaxis in the city. In 2021 Mobileye tested autonomous vehicles in the city, coming up with a few unique city characteristics: high number of pedestrians and jaywalkers, very assertive driving behaviour and a lot of double parking. There is also the issue of weather. 

Apple cuts 614 jobs as a result of abandoning its autonomous car project. 

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Tesla’s quarterly deliveries decline for the first time in nearly four years. Price cuts did not help the company to push sales, with both the global macroeconomics and Chinese cheaper brands to blame, among other potential reasons.  

Also Tesla is reportedly scrapping its plans to build a low-cost car. The vehicle was supposed to enter at a $25,000 price bracket, but competition from China and elsewhere is making this program irrelevant. The article also talks about Musk’s plans to use the platform for its robotaxi operations. We’ll have to wait until August for a Tesla robotaxi announcement from Elon Musk. Autonomous Teslas have been on the horizon since 2016, featuring first in Master Plan Part Deux, and have been delayed in line with the industry as a whole. 

Fisker sees mass order cancellations - 40,000 reservations have been cancelled, out of ±70,000 reservations in total; begins NHTSA investigation over stuck doors; and cancels 2024’s financial forecast. It is either a huge outside investment or bust at this stage. 

Volta Trucks back from bankruptcy with an acquisition by existing shareholder and creditor Luxor Capital, resumes operations. Rivian started the year well, with production and deliveries exceeding expectations. Ford slowing down on EVs in favour of hybrids. Tesla’s Semi electric truck program - a rare update. 

Canoo, which last week reported the acquisition of Arrival’s assets, published its 2023 financial report - which shows that it spent double its annual revenue on the CEO’s private jet. Revenue for the year was $886K, for 22 vehicles delivered; the company paid $1.7M in fees to hire the private jet from the CEO. Total net losses of $302.6 million. For the full report. 

Gig economy 💰

Deliveroo signs UK’s GMB union’s “Respect Charter”. The effect of Jumia's abrupt shut down of African markets left on delivery workers. 

In other news 📰

Waymo April fools: stopping for gas and grandma mode. Maniv, a mobility focused VC, raised $140M for its new fund. 

Thank you for reading #movingpeople. I’m always happy to get-to-know over a coffee chat - Calendly set-up.