Bolt to acquire Tier, Uber’s new products and Swiggy food delivery profitable

Slow news week with Bolt in talks to acquire Tier; Uber’s new products; Grab Q1 results; Bird reverse stock split; Swiggy food delivery profitable; and more with Moveinsync, BusCaro, Careem, Kakao, Liftango, Communauto, Peg-city, Cityscoot, MAN, Stagecoach, Phantom Auto, Virgin Orbit, Stratolaunch, AM radio and a 3D of the Titanic. Let’s start #movingpeople. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedBolt 💰Tier ?

Bolt is the leading candidate to acquire Tier. Bolt is currently in a due-diligence process, and valuation has yet to be agreed. According to Sifted, discussions with Lime have ended. In total, Tier has raised ±$900M, including a €30M convertible note the company recently issued, and is reported to have €130M debt. Latest Tier valuation, in October 2021, was €2bn, but since micromobility valuation has plummeted (Bird 90%, Voi 57% down since 2021). 

Tier has 330 micromobility markets, Bolt has 220. With a ±90 markets overlap, this means that Bolt could end up with 450 markets, winning many new markets and achieving scale in others. To be continued. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedRide-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Listen to an interview with MoveInSync on its Philippines operations. The company is active in 20 countries, commuting 500,000 employees for 200 clients, with 6.8M shared rides monthly, and is EBITDA profitable. In the Philippines, 5.4 million employees, or 15% of the workforce, are being offered some sort of employee commute. MoveInSync is now expanding to the country, today offering services to 5,000 employees. 

BusCaro is a Pakistani bus commute startup, which founders say is EBITDA profitable in 2 of 3 markets they operate. How will BusCaro succeed where Airlift and SWVL failed? By charging a profit-making price; no more subsidies and growth-at-any-cost finances, but good old-fashioned responsible pricing. To do that, the company is focusing on its user base - the middle class that are situated between public transport and rickshaws on the lower socio-economic spectrum to Careem and InDrive on the upper - offering an attractive enough price proposition for the middle class. 

Also Careem Pakistan launch bus commute as part of its ‘Careem for Business’ solution.

Grab Q1/23 results: Ramadan and the first-since-covid mobility enabled Chinese new year led to weak delivery results, sending the stock circa 10% down. But results are overall positive, with lower consumer and partner subsidies contributing to revenue growing 130% to $525M, above analysts expectations. Costs have also been cut, and the company expects an annual negative $195-235M adjusted operating loss, better than estimated at the start of the year. 

Liftango used simulations to increase ridership by 14%. The company is powering an eight vehicle on-demand service in Auckland, NZ. The service has completed a 12 month pilot and is now permanent, replacing a fixed route service. Kakao expanding van-hailing to the island of Jeju. The island is visited by 14 million tourists annually. Kakao is offering an on-demand solution that will compete with the 30,000 rental vehicles in the island. Rapid KL launched a new DRT service in Malaysia. A Roger French detail of the new West Rushcliffe (UK) DRT scheme. Careem Dubai launch school transportation; parents are offered a tracking link for the car-pool which is a up to four passengers (kids) service. Uber drivers' #1 reason for cancelling rides is an unwanted destination address. Uber launches private chartered boats in Mykonos, Greece. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedUber ‘Go-Get’ global product event 

In which Uber announced a set of solutions: 

Welcome groups: centralised accounts, allowing multiple users to ‘nest’ on a single paying user; this ‘super-user’ will receive real time tracking location and order notifications. Teen accounts for users over 13; kids will be driven only by experienced high-rated drivers with parents’ ability to track and contact the driver and additional safety features. This is a pilot launched in ±30 cities across the US and Canada. UberEats groups, for family members, roommates or ‘just’ friends; allowing to order together and split the bill if needed. Uber Central feature, geared toward hospitality concierge, will allow booking for guests; trip details will show on the guest's app. 

From cradle to non-techy: Partnering with Nuna, a car-seat company, to offer rides with a safe seat for the very little ones. To be piloted in New York and Los Angeles. Also - dial 1-833-USE-UBER to book an Uber without the app, in English or Spanish. Uber has piloted this service before the pandemic, to pause it and now bring it back across the US. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedSharing/renting 🚗🛴

From Canada: Communauto to add 885 free-floating and station-based vehicles to Montreal, bringing total vehicles to 3,700. Peg-city to add 35 vehicles to Winnipeg, bringing the total to 130 vehicles. The company is also introducing free-floating services. 

Happy to chat about mobility, sharing my experience and learning of what’s out there. Click here and let’s get to know! 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMicromobility 🚲🛴

Bird announced it will issue a reverse stock split and saw its stock fall by ±11%. This move comes after NYSE sent a delisting warning to Bird, in hope that the 1/25 reverse stock split would bring Bird back into compliance. It has, with Bird now trading over $1. 

RATP increases ownership in Cityscoot, following OK from the French competition authority, 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedDelivery 🍽🧺

Swiggy’s announced that its food delivery business reached profitability, “after factoring in ALL corporate costs; excluding employee stock option costs”. The company is also aiming to reach “contribution neutrality” for its instant grocery delivery business, Instamart, in the near future. This is not company level profitability, as cash burn is over $20M a month. 

In Nigeria, last-mile delivery apps are benefiting small businesses, as these apps vet couriers and offer journey tracking, helping to reduce courier fraud and theft. While the delivery market is growing, it is under the same macro-economic pressures the whole world is facing, leading to layoffs and talks of consolidation. 

Hope you enjoy reading #movingpeople. If you do, please consider sharing it with others so that they may benefit from it too. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAutonomous 🤖

MAN is working with Mobileye to develop autonomous buses. The companies aim to operate an autonomous bus in Munich by 2025, a part of the MINGA pilot project. 

Stagecoach begins operating a driverless bus passenger service in Edinburgh. A new 14 mile route has been created for the service, which travels both on segregated and mixed motorway traffic roads, and includes driving at 50 mph. 

Waymo and Cruise might soon be able to offer 24/7 robotaxi service in all of San Francisco, a  draft by the ‘California Public Utilities Commission’ (CPUC) suggests. A hearing on this will take place June 29th, with the city of SF objecting to the move. It is within the power of the CPUC to grant permission to charge passengers for fares, with the DMV approving requests to test and deploy autonomous vehicles (i.e. operating times and volume of vehicles). 

Phantom Auto, remote driving, raised $25 in a pre-funding valuation of $500 million. The company will continue to focus on the logistic space, powering forklifts and yard trucks. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedGig economy 💰

A proposed bill in Minnesota has Uber and Lyft threatening to leave the state. The bill guarantees minimum pay rates and protections against being fired (suspended), and the ride-hailing companies claim it will make Minnesota’s service more expensive than nearly anywhere else in the US. Uber also sent an email to drivers, saying the legislation would hurt their pay and will leave them “vulnerable to becoming employees”. That’s terrible. Uber has a different bill it is pushing, and we will have to wait now for legislation to be completed. Or not. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIn other news 📰

What is ‘new mobility’? I myself have been struggling with the definition many times, and now the International Transport Forum has defined it as “intraurban passenger mobility services and vehicles enabled by digital technology”. To the full report. 

US lawmakers want to make sure AM radio lives on in electric vehicles - at no additional charge to listeners. There is electromagnetic interference caused by the electric drivetrains in battery-powered engines, and so most major OEMs have already removed AM broadcast radio. Legislators claim that AM radio is essential in cases of national emergency and that digital radio is not reliable enough. 

Stratolaunch submits $17M bid for some of Virgin Orbit’s assets. Virgin Orbit reportedly spent around $1 billion developing this launch system, and went into chapter 11 bankruptcy in April. There are over 30 interested parties.

Cazoo exit from EU is now complete, with the company finalising sale of its assets. The company is now worth $50M, down from a $5 billion it was once worth. 

Amazing pictures and 3D view of the Titanic wreck. A scan of the vessel, at 4,000 metres deep, provided 700,000 images which were used to produce the result in the link. And a cool illustration of how far you can get across Europe in a 5 hour train ride.