💰 Fantuan $40M, Foretellix $42M & Cubic Telecom €473M, TuSimple leaves 🇺🇸, Air NZ 🤝 Beta and DoorDash & Uber respond in NYC

This week on #movingpeople: Via’s plans for CityMapper; Curb integrates demand; NextBike leaves Cardiff; Fantuan raises $40M; Uber launches courier store pickup service; Kodiak autonomous military off-road; Foretellix raises $42M; TuSimple leaves the US; Lilium partners with Lufthansa; Air New Zealand signs with Beta; DoorDash and UberEats responding to NYC minimum courier wage; and the Cubic Telecom - Softbank deal. Let’s start.

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

A post from Via spells out their plans for CityMapper. The “CityMapper for Cities” solution will be offered to cities, as a co-branded solution -  not white labelled - customised to each city’s needs. Remix is mentioned as well, but it is not clear if data from CityMapper has any advantage over any other data source integrating to Remix. 

MoveInSync, commute SaaS & TaaS platform, is looking to raise $50M to $60M. Founded in 2009, MoveInSync has circa 200 customers in 24 cities in India; international activity in the Philippines, South Africa and Sri Lanka; 450,000 monthly users; and over 2.5 million monthly trips. IPO is planned in 2-3 years, once the company reaches circa $50M ARR. 

Rapido’s cab pilot in Hyderabad was a “fantastic start” and now the company expands car service across India. Instead of a driver commission-based system, the company uses a dynamic subscription fee, based on drivers’ earnings through the platform.

Curb, ride-hailing & taxi app, launches API that aggregates demand from various sources - creates a unified ecosystem for ride demands. 

Lyko, MaaS, raises €1.4M. Funds will be used to improve product and accelerate international expansion. 

TfL aims to regulate pedicabs - introducing licensing requirements and setting fares. Taxis are wondering if pedicabs are even public transport? In Dublin, Freenow partners with Kerb Cabs to roll out a pedal-cab service. Arriva Denmark, recently acquired by a PE, changes name to Gocollective. 

A lawsuit against Uber for racial discrimination is working its way to courts. The claim is that non-white drivers are more likely to receive “bad” ratings, and therefore the entire rating system is unconstitutional. 

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

In New Zealand, Carbn Group, fleet financing and advisory business, acquired Zilch, electric car-sharing.  

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

InDrive adds electric motorcycles to its Pakistani fleet, by partnering with local Vlektra.

Nextbike (by Tier) leaves Cardiff (Wales) due to high theft volume. The company says 3,000 (!) bikes have been missing or damaged since operations started in 2018. In 2021, the company temporarily halted operations due to the same reason. 

Negative profitability and shared-mopeds struggling - 2023 is starting to be summarised. Inside a chart comparing the major players. 

I love meeting new people, learning about new companies and exchanging opinions. Want to get-to-know and talk mobility? Let’s set up a half-hour coffee chat. 

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

Fantuan, Vancouver-based Asian food delivery, raises $40M. Established in 2014 and operating in >50 cities in North America, Australia and the UK, the company wants to become the go-to destination where overseas Chinese can discover and access all forms of leisure activities, much like Meituan. 

Uber launches ‘Store Pickup’ feature, rolling out to 1,700 cities . The feature allows customers to request a courier to pick up any package from any store, if it is under $200 and under 30 lbs (±13.5kg). 

Mirai Share, Japan, is launching a drone delivery pilot. 

Amazon is piloting a new monthly grocery subscription for Prime members. The pilot is conducted in three cities, priced at $9.99 per month, and offers unlimited free grocery delivery on orders over $35 from Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh. 

Grubhub partners with Fuel Rewards to allow members (note: members, not couriers) fuel discounts, adding non-delivery related value. 

Starship shares 2023 stats: >16 million road crossings; milk in the #1 food in European cities (Estonia, UK, Finland) but in US campuses it's french fries that is most popular. More data here. In Helsinki, HeRo Robot, by Forum Virium, is trialling deliveries. 

Rest of World read on Chowdeck, Nigerian delivery; a favourable article, which claims that Chowdeck is gaining market share. This, thanks to advanced geotagging abilities and driver incentives. 

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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAutonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Kodiak Robotics unveiled its 1st autonomous test vehicle, designed for the U.S. Department of Defense. Kodiak uses the Ford F-150 pickup truck to test autonomous surveillance and reconnaissance missions in off-road terrain. 

Foretellix raises additional $42M to build and test self-driving scenarios. This brings the total Series C to $85M. Funds will be used to further develop the platform and for business development efforts. 

The UK is set to support autonomous driving - the government committed to £150M of funding by 2030 and is updating trialling regulation. Across the pond, US AV coalition asks for more government support to be able to compete with China. 

TuSimple closes US operations and looks for a buyer for the US assets. The company will continue operations from China. 

Cruise may face a $1.5M fine for 'misleading' the CPUC, Californian regulator, over the Oct. 2nd accident. The CPUC claims that Cruise "omitted that the Cruise AV had engaged in the pullover maneuver which resulted in the pedestrian being dragged an additional 20 feet at 7 mph (11.27 km per hour)". Quick maths - that is 2 seconds of dragging. 

Article on Motional’s Remote Vehicle Assistance (RVA) agents. Interestly, RVAs don’t drive the car, only review and verify proposed routes when requested by the robotaxi, when it encounters an environment it may not recognise.

A 17 minute Wayve drive + CEO interview video. 

Austin has an AV dashboard and you can check it out here. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFlying cars 🚁

Lilium starts production. Lilium signs MOU with Lufthansa for strategic partnership - for areas such as ground and flight operations, future aircraft maintenance, crewing & flight training and vertiport infrastructure. 

Air New Zealand signs an agreement with Beta for an order for one aircraft, option for two more and rights for a further 20. The 1st aircraft will be used for cargo missions, together with the NZ post. 

Wisk trials autonomous flights in New Zealand. Indonesia is in talks with Wisk for air taxis in its new capital. 

Doroni Aerospace aircraft receives FAA Airworthiness Certification. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedOEMs 🛺⚡️

Lion Electric, EV bus and truck manufacturer, lays off 10% of its workforce, circa 150 people. 

Ola Electric slashes sales targets by more than half and pushes back profitability by a year - ahead of planned IPO. 

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

Responding to the recent NYC minimum wage regulation, DoorDash and UberEats are eliminating upfront tipping and getting ready to introduce a new service fee, with Uber already implementing a $2 special NYC order fee. As for tipping, you can now tip only after the ​​order has been completed, which makes tipping less likely. For Doordash, this is a shift from its usual strategy, which encourages customers to tip.

Back in June I wrote that, from a theoretical economic perspective, the next likely move after a wage increase is an increase in price. Textbook economics. Now the next step should be (quoting myself from June) “decrease in demand, leading to decrease in couriers, leading to better courier utilisation, leading to improved costs, leading to decrease in price, leading to increase in demand and eventually - equilibrium. TBC.”

In the UK, Rodeo is a gig-worker aggregator app. It allows gig workers a single place to sign into, optimise earnings and chat with other drivers. The company is building a centralised dispatching tool that will  allow workers to accept jobs from multiple providers, all from the same screen. Read the full interview here. 

In Brazil, delivery workers set off horns and fireworks at bad customers’ homes. It’s called bololô, and it is pretty much the only way couriers have to protect themselves in the long run. 

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

SoftBank Corp takes 51% of Cubic Telecom for €473M to drive into the connected car world. 

Gildance uses autonomous technology to help people with sight-loss. See video of a shopping mall robot. 

And the best city for urban transportation is… Helsinki. This is according to an Oliver Wyman analysis. Of the top ten, only San Francisco (#4) and Singapore (#6) are not European. 

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