Kakao acquires Splyt, Turo good 2022 results and Zipline new city delivery drone

Kakao acquires Splyt; Volt Lines raises; Turo publishes good 2022 results; Bird raises; JET moves to a gig-economy model in the UK; Zipline develops new city delivery drone; Gogoro in Singapore; Waymo looking to lead autonomous industry safety standards; Court ruling in Netherlands defines delivery riders as employees; and more on this week’s #movingpeople. Let’s start. 

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

Kakao Mobility acquires Splyt. Back in August 2022 Kakao, South Korean ride-hailing, expressed its intent to expand into Europe, and partnered with Splyt, a ‘superapp’ enabler, to have Bolt integrated into the Kakao app. Today Kakao is present in 30 markets, with the latest expansion to Guam and Laos. The Splyt acquisition will help Kakao “secure a foothold to tap into the global mobility market”. Splyt’s team and product will be integrated into Kakao’s teams. 

Volt Lines, a Turkish corporate commuter SaaS & TaaS player using vans and small buses, raises an undisclosed sum after the recently cancelled SWVL acquisition, and aims to be cash flow positive by Q4/2023. Interesting about this raise: it sees Hedef Filo, corporate car leasing, and TikTak, free-floating car sharing, coming into the round, which signals that Turkish employee commute is becoming a multi-modal interest. 

Yango partners with a leasing company in Ghana to enable more drivers and courier to its platform. Lyft and Solera want to switch shuttles to on-demand cars, whether it's for customers, parts delivery or roadside assistance. Via in Palo Alto, with 9 cars. inDrive launches rickshaw ride-hailing service in Lucknow, India. 

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

Turo published its 2022 financials - (document here). Revenue up 56% to $746.6M, adjusted EBITDA profit of $79.7M (similar to 2021 results), with a net income of $154.7M. Things look good at Turo, meaning its awaited IPO could be close. 

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

Bird receives additional funding, bringing the total to $33M this year. Shares are up. Dubai doubles shared e-scooter trips in 2022, reaching 1 million trips. Tier renews licence in Tel-Aviv, starts rolling out its gen-3 e-bikes in London and NextBike expands in Spain. Veo in Purdue and Syracuse. Voi e-bikes in Northampton. Bird expands in Toronto, enters Montgomery and soon to launch in Ontario. Levy in New Ulm. 

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

Just Eat Takeaway (JET) in the UK moves to a gig-employee model and makes 1,870 employees redundant - 1,700 couriers and 170 operational roles. JET still intends to work across Europe with its employee-based model, except for places such as Ireland, Slovakia and parts of France.  

Zipline unveils a new drone platform that can perform inner-city deliveries in a safe and accurate way. The platform is a small vessel that links to an autonomous drone flying above; this vessel drops down and navigates itself to land within a two feet zone. Watch an amazing 20 min video on what the company does, how they help the health industry in Africa, and on their new city drone solution. 

Gogoro, Taiwanese electric vehicle battery-swapping provider, is entering Singapore via a pilot with online grocery and food delivery platform, Foodpanda, and Cycle and Carriage Singapore (C&C). For now a small scale pilot with only 20 vehicles and 2 swapping stations, C&C will use Gogoro’s vehicles and swapping operations and will lease vehicles to Foodpanda’s riders. Gogoro has operations in Taiwan, Indonesia, India, South Korea and the Philippines.

JET and Iceland partner on rapid grocery delivery in the UK, initially starting with 200 stores. Urb-it and Varamis Rail partner to offer a logistic chain that includes e-cargo bikes, trucks and rail. Zedify, an e-cargo bike delivery solution, raises £5M. Funds will go toward expansion to Manchester and Birmingham. 

Reef leaves Portland. The company is shifting its focus to tech licensing, rather than operations. Zomato leaves Jordan. Coupang leaves Japan. Hugo (acquired by DeliveryHero) leaves Jamaica. 

Alameda, California, sets a 15% cap for food delivery companies, UberEats is threatening to leave the city. Deliveroo blocks Rodeo, an online service that compares pay rates for gig economy jobs.

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

Waymo published a 38 page paper (here) on its approach to safety. The company wishes regulators and competitors will adopt the safety framework paper, with the aim to create a blueprint for the industry. 

Cruise’s robotaxis in SF baffled after a storm downed trees and wires, and blocked a road. Cruise car rear-ends a muni-bus. 

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

Ola Electric plans to raise ±$300M. In January 2022 the company raised $200M at a $5bn valuation.  

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

Dutch Supreme Court rules Deliveroo rides employees, not self employed. Deliveroo has left the Netherlands in late 2022, but the ruling has implications for Uber and the likes in the country. 

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

Candela raises $20M for the future of ferries, bringing total funding to $47.2M. Producing electric hydrofoil shuttles, the company is getting ready to debut its 30-passenger commercial shuttle that has a range of 60 nautical miles (111km) at a cruising speed of 27 knots (50 km/h).