Investors are still betting on delivery (but not quick), Bolt bets on Barcelona, car manufacturers bet on micromobility and Tevva joins the big league in electric trucks.

In delivery, Gorillas are in talks with other players to consolidate; Buggy acquires Ninja Delivery; Deliveroo and DoorDash with grocery retail partnership and big raises from Wonder ($350M) and Rohlik ($231M) and plenty of small raises. In ride-hailing, Bolt is betting on Barcelona, Uber brings back pool and Lyft introduces cash. In micromobility, Helbiz acquires Wheels, Tier wins Ireland, Porsche acquires Fazua and a new product from Skarper. In flying cars, Overair raises $145M and Electra.aero acquires Airflow. Also Arrival gets its vehicles on-ground and Tevva raises $51M, after a $57M raise in November, and is now a leading electric (and hydrogen) truck manufacturer player. A busy week in mobility - let’s start #movingpeople. 

Delivery 🍽🧺

The news is full talking about quick-delivery, the dark-warehouse get-it-to-you in ±15-minutes model, dying (example). We see consolidations, market exists, switch to ‘normal’ same/next day delivery models, partnerships that effectively create a white-label delivery model and diversification such as private label creation - trying to get delivery services profitable. There are other opinions (example), but the trend is clear:

Gorillas want to be group level profitable in 12 months. To do that the company is looking at new revenue streams, such as supermarket partnership (i.e. Tesco in the UK) and new product lines (i.e. private label). The company is also cutting back. Gorillas is leaving Belgium. The company has reached out to local supermarket chains to have them take a part of the activity, this way reducing exit costs, that have mostly to do with employee termination. Gorillas considers job cuts in Spain. And most importantly, Gorillas is in talks with other industry players, including Jokr and GoPuff, for a potential merger / acquisition. The company is said to burn $80M a month. 

Buggy acquires Ninja Delivery. Last week I reported that Ninja 'disappeared’, with its app ceasing to operate. Now an acquisition has been announced. Both companies are Toronto based. 

Zapp is leaving Amsterdam. The company is consulting with employees and unions on the best way out (saving exit costs), and will probably close shop next month. Amsterdam has been a pain for quick-delivery companies, with the city closing dark stores and an upcoming legislation that will allow dark stores to operate only in industrial areas, effectively ‘killing’ the ‘quick’ part of the service. 

Deliveroo partners with Spar (Europe) to deliver from its retail stores. DoorDash partners with Loblaw (Canada) to launch 30 minutes deliveries. 

Kune Food, Kenya-based cloud kitchen offering ready-to-eat affordable meals, is closing. Rising food costs and unfavourable market conditions meant the startup could not raise additional funds to keep going. 

We also look at where the VC money - and there is still plenty of it - is going:

Delivery startup Wonder raised $350M at a $3.5bn valuation. Wonder collaborates with popular chefs and deploys mobile restaurants, making food to folks in New Jersey; for now the service is available in 22 New Jersey towns with 19 Mobile restaurants. Funds will be used to increase reach and number of mobile restaurants. 

Rohlik, a Czech online grocery delivery service, raised $231M. Rohlik is different from the quick-delivery players we got used to: it offers a wider range of products, selling ±17K items vs. ±2K for quick-delivery companies; works with large fulfilment centres; most deliveries are up to 90 minutes; and fresh produce constitute 40% of items. Rohlik has been growing slower, currently operating in 5 cities ‘only’ - Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Munich and Frankfurt. This is intentional, to enable sustainable growth. Funds will be used to automate fulfilment centres, add electric mobility and expand to additional European cities. 

Rider (Pakistan) raised $3.1M (and total of $5.4M since Sept. 21) to build e-commerce next day delivery service. Rider has 16 hubs that service 60 cities, roughly 60% of the country’s demand. The company uses mobile warehouses (vans), empty shopping mall parking lots and gas stations to lower costs. Next up is building a partner network of convenience stores, developing tech tools to support SMBs. and expanding beyond the last-mile delivery. 

Moova, Argentinian last-mile delivery software optimisation, raised $10M. Moova operates in eight LATAM countries, and plans to expand to the US. 

Khazenly, Egyptian on-demand warehouse and fulfilment platform, helping SME merchants digitise their business, raised $2.5M. Funds will be used to extend product range, such as mobile dark stores. 

Capiter fulfilled 1 million deliveries in 2022 across Egypt. The company, founded in late 2020, raised $33M in September 2021 to expand B2B e-commerce.  

And also in delivery:

(1) Discounts are built-in the quick-delivery pricing model and (2) lately people are less willing to pay. In the US, GoPuff has been offering discounts on 25%-30% of orders, slightly increasing % of orders discounted over the past months. In Germany, Getir offers >80% discounted orders, Gorillas 50%; discounts have increased over the past months. France is steady, with Getir (again) offering 80% discounted offers, GoPuff with a pattern of two months ±70% and then one ±50%, and Gorillas ±45%. Read more on Quartz. 

Grubhub and Cartken partner on robot delivery services. The pilot will launch at Ohio State University in the spring. This partnership replaces Grubhub former Yandex partnership. GoPuff signed a sponsorship deal with London’s O2 venue, enabling the company to offer delivery within the venue. 

Drone Delivery 🛫🧺: Wingcopter (Germany) raises $42M to deploy UAVs in Africa, plan expansion to the US, improve product features and potentially work on European grocery deliveries. Amazon is waiting for FAA approval to launch its long-awaited drone services. Safety issues have been delaying the service, which was originally announced in 2013.  

Ride-hailing 🚙🚘

Uber is not! Leaving India. A Bloomberg report said it had considered so, but it was important enough for Uber’s CEO to tweet that “there is zero truth to the story… at any level”. 

Bolt in Barcelona with a VTC and a taxi service, adding to its e-bike services. Risky step for Bolt, as Catalan regulation has been aggressive toward VTC (ride-hailing) so far, and future legislation planned for September could mean the company will have to withdraw. Bolt is betting that once the service is used, regulation will be hard to impose. 

Uberpool is back, now with the definitely not confusing name - UberXShare. New scheme includes up to 20% discount on total fare and a maximum of 8 minutes delay vs. a ‘traditional’ UberX service. Drivers are allowed to opt-out of the service, and riders are allowed to only book for themselves, with the service matching no more than two riders. 

Lyft enables people to pay cash. Working with companies such as Walmart, Kroger and ACE (±35,000 locations across the US), riders can ‘top-up’ their Lyft app with cash. Revel expands to Brooklyn. 

Micromobility 🛴🚲

Helbiz to acquire Wheels in a ‘primarily all-stock deal’. The companies signed a letter of intent. The acquisition would allow Helbiz to gain efficiencies of scale. This follows an MOU from January in which Wheels agreed to supply Helbiz with vehicles. 

Tier wins Ireland’s first micro-mobility tender. The company will deploy 400 e-bike to Fingal county council, in the greater Dublin region. Tier is replacing Spin’s e-scooters in Essex. Back in March Tier acquired Spin, including its UK operations. Now the company is bringing in its own scooter, this time in Colchester. 

Car manufacturers entering micromobility. Porsche is acquiring German e-bike company Fazua, which manufactures lightweight motors and batteries and works with over 40 bike manufacturing brands. Porsche plans to continue Fazua’s OEM sales, as well as produce a Porsche e-bike brand. Honda announces a new self-balancing e-scooter under the Striemo brand. This is the company's 2nd e-scooter product. 

Scooter companies in Helsinki - Tier, Voi, Lime, Bird and Dott - call for a licensing model to be implemented in the city. Scooter companies prefer city tenders and regulations - as it limits the number of players and sets clear ground rules for all remaining players - leading to sustainable pricing strategies for those who stay. 

Zipp Mobility, Ireland-based e-scooter and e-bikes operator, raised €6.1M to grow European operations. Bolt launches e-bikes in Belgium. Bird implements a 'no-ride’ zone near a school in Oregon. City of Pensacola, Florida, extends Bird scooter program. Dott (further) integrates with Google Maps. Neuron Mobility launches Google Maps integration in Canada. Superpedestrian and Voi adding to the layoff list, mostly in HQ.

Turn any bike to an e-bike instantly. Skarper, a London-based startup, introduces a ‘snap-on’ DiskDrive electric motor for bikes; the device powers itself from the rear disk brake, reaching a range of up to 60km. Built for urban mobility, it is light-weight (3kg); can be taken on/off, thus enabling switching between multiple bikes in the same household or just taking off while parking in the street to protect from stealing; and is less expensive than electric bikes (price to be set at ±£1,000). Shipment planned for 2023. 

Flying cars 🚁☁️

Overair raises $145 to fund development of eVTOLS. The company has seen a major investment from South Korean company Hanwha, which holds a 30% stake in Overair. 

Electra.aero acquired Airflow, in an air taxi consolidation. Both companies are pursuing a short runway model, rather than vertical takeoff/landing, as they claim it makes more economical sense. So far consolidations in the air taxi industry have been extremely rare. 

Jetson Aero, a Swedish eVTOL, releases a video of their CEO commuting to work. With their eVTOL, obviously. Archer Aviation expands flight testing program, now with a tilt propeller system. Volocopter and Diehl Aerospace partner to create fly-by-light control systems. Blade and JetBlue partner - with Blade offering JetBlue’s customers a discounted last-mile transport to JetBlue’s hub in JFK. E-Hang gets a pre-order from Tianxingjian, as the authority looks at touristic use cases for flying cars. 

Autonomous 🤖

I have not covered it but you might have read somewhere else that the NHTSA (US) published ADAS crash statistics. You might remember a headline about Tesla being the company with the highest number of crashes. Well, it doesn’t mean anything and you should ignore those statistics. That is why it hasn’t been covered here. Move along people, nothing to see here. 

Cruise started charging riders for its robotaxi service. Einride to test autonomous trucks in the US. Overview of US autonomous regulation in a map. Top 25 autonomous car companies. 

Manufacturers 🛺

A super interesting tweet on electric vehicle insane SPACs. At peak, these companies achieved billions in market cap - most of them still have no revenue to show for it. 

Tevva raises another $51M. The company has just raised $57M in November, bringing total funding to $140M. Tevva will begin production on a 7.5 tonne all-electric truck in Q3, and begin developing a 7.5 tonne hydrogen electric truck. Future plans include 12 tonne and 19 tonne trucks.  

Arrival received European Whole Vehicle Certification and is partnering with Enel X partner to launch trials of Arrival’s electric battery bus in Italy. 

In other news 📰

Remember Foursquare? Once a consumer-facing application, today an enterprise technology vendor powering the likes of Uber, Apple MAps, JetBlue, Airbnb and others, via its SDK.