Kodiak commercialises, Vertical & Forest raise and Bolt + Miles

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business  - a consultancy dedicated to "All Things Mobility", focused on growth.

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Rapido, which raised $200M back in September 2024, plans to expand into 500 additional cities in India, adding to the 120 cities the company operates in today.

DiDi launches international aggregation, i.e. the ability to book ride-hailing services via the DiDi app in countries such as South Korea and Japan, partnering with the likes of Kakao and Grab.  

Moovit adds ticket-purchasing functionality throughout 40 European countries, in partnership with Distribusion Technologies. Via API, a user can now book trains, buses and ferries. 

InDrive partners with Auto24, African used-car buyer and seller, to offer drivers vehicles and maintenance. 

Studio Galilei, maker of VARO DRT, raises pre-series A2 round. Funds will be used to expand in Korea and expand internationally, to countries such as Japan and Thailand. In December 2024 VARO transported 96,069 passengers, up 52% YoY. 

Wayla raises €900,000 via equality and debt; the company launched its van-taxi-pooling service in Milan, in October 2024. 

Bolt said it is not considering exiting Nigeria nor is it scaling down operations in the country. High fuel costs and inflation has brought down demand in the country. Bolt expands in Tanzania. FlixBus India expands in South India. Uber and Ola deny implementing phone model-based pricing in India. 

Bolt launched Bolt Business - a corporate ground mobility solution, from cars to scooters. Bolt Business allows you to book for employees, customers and partners, offering app and web booking, scheduled rides, control over spending limits, emission offsetting and automated reports on usage, costs and sustanabiity. 

Check it out via this link - I have a coupon good for 25% off 20 rides (T&C) - just type in “BB25OFF20” when registering.

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Bolt and Miles partner - over 20,000 Miles cars in 10 German cities are now available on the Bolt platform. 

SOCAR user count drops 26%; the company attributes the decline to the economic downturn in South Korea. SOCAR, which integrated parking and e-bikes into its app, makes 91% of revenue from car-sharing.

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Forest raises £13M in a Series B 1st close, £10M of which in asset-based financing (debt). Funds will be used to expand operation, develop three new e-bike models - Cargo, Duo and Kid - and further invest in R&D. 

Donkey republic is EBIT positive. 2024 stats:

• Revenue up 25% YoY, to ±€19.4M (DKK 145M)

• EBITDA €3.1M (DKK 23.2M) and EBIT €130,000 (DKK 1M)

• Monthly revenue per bike up 18% to €76.4 (DKK 570) - so annual revenue per bike comes out to €917

• 680k riders (up 21%) and 8.4 million trips (up 26%)

• Fleet size 21.1k active bikes (up 6%)

Less is more. RideMovi’s CEO on the new Italian highway code - the result of which is a 30% decline in e-scooter usage - only in the first month to the law entering into effect. The upside? Public acceptance. 

Dott to launch in Nottingham, UK, deploying ±1,300 scooters. Pricing: no unlock fee, 29 pence per minute. For £2.99 a month, unlimited £2 rides. In December 2023 Superpedestrian shut down its UK operations, and since then there wasn’t an active scooter scheme in the city. Ryde expands in Sweden to three new cities. Bolt launches electric scooter service in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, deploying over 300 scooters. Beam Mobility ends its e-scooter services in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Australia.

Delivery 🍽🧺

Zomato Q3 results: 

• Revenue up 64% to ±$627M (54 billion rupees)

• Profit fell 57% to $6.8M (590 million rupees)

• Blinkit, rapid-delivery, saw an increase in orders - but also losses widening to $12M (1.03 billion rupees). Blinkit has 46% market share but the rapid-delivery market is seeing increasing competition. 

Coco is a delivery bot by Coco Robotics, to launch in Chicago, in partnership with DoorDash. 

Coupang launches food delivery service in Japan; this is the company’s first international expansion. Deliveroo launches HOP grocery delivery in Abu Dhabi in partnership with Choithrams, a supermarket chain. Bolt implements grocery deliveries in Nairobi, Kenya. The high cost of delivery limits the service to upscale neighbourhoods, and competition comes from supermarket chains (Naivas and Carrefour), Glovo, and Uber Eats. Wolt increases prices in Israel and receives major consumer backlash. Glovo selects Nairobi as its global real-time operations hub. The hub, with 160 employees, will serve the 23 countries Glovo operates in. 

Amazon suspends commercial drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona, after two crashes in rainy weather. The crashes occurred in December, and are attributed to a software malfunction, which will now be fixed.

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Kodiak commercialises -  delivers first driverless trucks to Atlas Energy, a logistics company. The two companies have had a commercial pilot since July 2024. Now, Atlas Energy owns and operates two autonomous trucks; Kodiak business model is a combined hardware and software annual subscription package. 

Ati Motors, autonomous logistic and service robots from India, raises $20M. 

WeRide to launch robotaxi service in Switzerland (in addition to the Zurich airport launch). The service will see two vehicles (growing to four vehicles in H2/25), bookable through the ioki platform. 

Inceptio Technology, Chinese maker of autonomous heavy-duty trucks, is exploring an IPO in the US in 2025. While WeRide and Pony AI are currently traded in the US, with Trump this IPO seems far away. 

In 2024, Waymo paid lobbyists to meet with San Francisco government officials 348 times, up from 137 reported meetings in 2023. 

Uber’s CEO on human drivers (video, another video): drivers will be around for the next ±10 years, at which point AVs are going to take over. 

Janosch Oppermann developed an app to help you learn about electric vehicles. Check it out, it’s free:

Flying cars 🚁

Vertical Aerospace raises $90M by issuing 15 million more shares; this is a better result than the $75M the company was targeting.  

OEMs 🛺⚡️

BYD is not invincible - a look at the strength and weaknesses of BYD and why Warren Buffett's recent shedding of his BYD holdings could make sense. 

In Canada, automakers temporarily offer EV rebates after federal incentive ends early. The existing scheme ran out of money and to keep demand, automakers are offering up to the $5,000 CAD that was previously offered (subsidised) by the government. This includes the likes of General Motors, Volkswagen, Nissan and Hyundai. 

Rivian to launch hands-free driving system in 2025 and 'eyes-off' in 2026. 

US safety regulators expand Ford BlueCruise (hands-free) investigation; upgrading to an engineering analysis, covering vehicles between the 2021-2024 model years.

Ola Electric begins production of its e-Bike Roadster, aims for deliveries in March. 

UBCO, maker of electric utility motorbikes, goes into receivership.

Gig economy 💰

In Nigeria. Moove reprimands driver for accepting rides on inDrive. Moove requires all drivers to work exclusively for Uber, per the company because it needs to generate productivity data to underwrite the drivers.

Uber urges the block of Colorado law requiring disclosure of driver pay next to rider charges.

In other news 📰

Tracks, loyalty platform for sustainable mobility, partners with Omio, allowing booking of trains, buses and ferries. 

A new study finds that, between 1980 and 2010, Americans walked faster (by an avg. of 15%) and schmoozed less, having fewer of the informal encounters that “make” cities. There could be a number of reasons (increasing value of time, cellphones, rise of loneliness and more) but what is sure is that public space has (and is) changing. 

A robber tried to flee in a Waymo - note to criminals: once police cars turn on the emergency lights, a Waymo will pull over.

I love meeting new people, learning about innovation in mobility innovation and exchanging opinions. Let’s get-to-know / catch-up.

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Carl Brohage is the new Fleet Manager @ Europcar Sverige. 

Sofia Stayte is the new Head of Aviation Skills and Future of Flight @ Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom.

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