SVB bust but things are mostly OK - plus your weekly mobility news.

SVB collapsed and saved and I explain; and then back to weekly news with Gett and FreeNow partnering; Uber improving airport experience; new micromobility global incentive & subsidiary tracker; Bird 2022 report; Foodrocket shut down; Lilium flies at 250 km/h; GM introduces L2 ADAS; Zoox and Tesla under NHTSA investigations; Arrival in need for cash; Uber is considering spinning off Uber Freight; and more with Ola, Meituan, Careem, Transdev, Check, Wheego, Zevo, Beam, Cabify, Nextbike, Helbiz, Human Forest and others. Let’s start #movingpeople. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

The Fall and rise of SVB 💰😢

Silicon Valley Bank, or SVB, collapsed, in the US 2nd biggest and world’s quickest bank collapse in history. This was Friday. Today, Monday morning, the US government bails SVB and HSBC acquires the UK entity. The startup community is saved, the Biden administration avoids being remembered as crashing the global entrepreneurship ecosystem. Let’s unfold what happened. 

How and When? It all began on Wednesday, when the bank surprised investors, announcing that it needed to raise $2.25bn to improve its balance sheet. This caused a bank-run fueled by worrisome VCs; by the end of Thursday, $42bn of deposits, 24% of deposits, were withdrawn. That drained the bank’s funds. On Friday morning the US regulator took over the bank and the future seemed gloomy for many people and companies… and on Monday morning the US government announced it is ensuring all deposits and HSBC acquired the local UK branch. A good end to the clients of SVB. 

Why did the bank need the money to begin with? Between 2019 and 2022, a record number of deposits found its way to the bank, with startups getting funded in record breaking numbers. Companies didn’t need loans (everyone was raising), so most of the money found its way to securities (bonds). Long story short, the hiking interest rates caused those bonds to lose money, and combined with slowly shrinking deposits throughout 2022 (companies simply needed the money) the bank needed to raise more money to improve its balance sheet. At that point it announced the need to raise the $2.25bn, and the bank run began. Read the long and detailed version at Net Interest. 

Wait, so it was actually a bank run that set all of this? Pretty much YES! The bank wasn’t in good shape, but not such a bad shape, and if it wouldn’t be for the bank run - SVB would still be with us. The numbers are staggering - customers withdraw $42bn in ±10 hours, or $1.2M per second for 10 hours straight! Last time the US had a bank run, it took 10 days to withdraw ‘only’ $16.7bn. Welcome to the digital age of banking. 

Aftermath? US regulators stepped in to ensure SVB’s clients are protected; and HSBC acquired the local UK branch for a staggering £1 (one pound = $1.21). So from the client side, mostly all good. The bank itself, its shareholders, management and many stakeholders - less so. This is an evolving story which will probably have implications on the banking system - but that is for a different newsletter. Now, back to the weekly #movingpeople news. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Gett and FreeNow partner in the UK, allowing Gett’s business clients access to over 20,000 minicab drivers via FreeNow’s platform. This is a very interesting partnership, as it enables Gett to expand across corporate clients in Europe, without worrying about the supply (driver) side. FreeNow gets to keep drivers busy and happy and keeps a margin. 

Uber improves airport experience for travellers, offering step-by-step, visual and written instructions to pick up points, and offering walking ETAs. ‘Uber Reserve’ is also upgraded, extending booking from 30 to 90 days and adding service types (comfort, green etc.), giving travellers a better way to pre-book. 

Apt Rides is a new hyperlocal ride-hailing player in Vancouver, Canada. Uride in Alberta, Canada. Ola and Uber applied for aggregator licences in Maharashtra, India. This follows a supreme court ruling on the subject, requiring aggregators to hold a licence, in addition to the operators themselves. Meituan launches self developed map and reduces the amount of resources dedicated to its ride-hailing service. Grab pays back $600M debt. What3words in Vietnam. Careem offers drivers car financing in Saudi. Careem wants to launch a women only motorbike service in Pakistan. There are more than 1,700 women car drivers on the platform, but motorbikes address a different, more price sensitive, customer segment. 

Transdev completes the acquisition of First Transit in North America. The combined company will have more than 50,000 vehicles operating. Via in Seattle offering last/first mile solutions. A DRT scheme in Kuala Lumpur is extended. Roger French DRT bad experience in Merseyside and West Huntingdonshire. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Sharing/renting 🚗🛴

Check, Amsterdam’s shared moped provider, adds cars to its portfolio. The company is starting with a 10 car pilot. Wheego partners with FLOYT Mobility to display Wheego’s supply on FLOYT’s marketplace for car-ownership alternatives. Zevo launches all-electric P2P car-sharing in Dallas and Austin. 

VinGroup, parent of VinFast, Vietnam car OEM, opens an electric car and scooter rental company, based on vehicles built by VinFast. The new rental company, GSM, will offer its solution for traditional and online taxis, while operating a taxi business of itself.  

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Micromobility Industries and RideReview have launched a data tool that maps government incentives & subsidies for the global micromobility industry. The tool has information on >400 government schemes in over 30 countries, and is designed to help policy makers to learn. Note that this is a B2C subsidy list, i.e. includes incentives are given to people to switch to micromobility travel, and not a B2B list, which would detail the subsidies given to companies such as  Lime, Voi etc. To the tool. 

Bird in 2022: revenue 28% up YoY to $290.5M, net loss $214.9M. Bird had 46.5 million rides and 1.3 rides/vehicle/day on 98,800 deployed vehicles. Cash in hand (unrestricted) $33M, which isn’t enough to last 2023 without an additional raise / become cash flow positive. For more interesting stats. Bird says it intends to become positive cash flow of $5 to $10M, in the process slashing costs and improving asset utilisation. 

Beam begins e-bike operations in Victoria. Cabify and Cooltra partner to offer Cooltra’s electric mopeds on the Cabify app in Barcelona and Madrid. Nextbike, bike-share by Tier, expands in Spain and Poland. Spin, a Tier company, in Richmond, Virginia. Bird and Lime in Jacksonville, Florida. Lime back in Chicago. Helbiz drops under the minimal market cap required by Nasdaq - $35 million - received a warning and was able to regain value. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Delivery 🍽🧺

Uber and HumanForest partner; couriers will get discounted rides on HumanForest’s e-mopeds. Foodpanda and Colgate partner in Asia Pacific, allowing consumers to order Colgate’s products on demand. The Kenyan regulator is looking at delivery apps practices; expect new policies soon. 

Food Rocket, rapid delivery in the US, has ceased operations. 

Gopuff laid off about 2% of its workforce, over 100 people. This is the company’s third layoff round in the past year and a company spokesman said that this round was not a cost-cutting effort, but instead part of an annual performance review process in which top performers are rewarded and low performers are let go. After this round, there are circa 10,000 employees at GoPuff. iFood, operational in Brazil and Columbia, lays off 355 employees, or 6.3% of the company. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Autonomous 🤖

GM introduces “Ultra Cruise sensor suite, a powerhouse of cameras, radars, LiDAR, and computing and driver-monitoring systems – all working together to provide consistent, clear, hands-free operation in our Ultra Cruise-equipped vehicles”. The new suite will allow level 2 ADAS support. I.e. still demand eyes-on drive.  

Waymo and Aurora applied for an exemption from the requirement to place warning devices around stopped commercial vehicles. Level 4 vehicles don’t have drivers, so there is no one to put those devices on the road; the companies want the regulator to approve usage of vehicle’s flashing lights only. 

Cruise says it intends to focus more on cost cutting. Reminder: last year the business cost $2bn to operate. Ghost Autonomy, automated driving startup, raised $45.3 million. Beep launches in Miami Zoo, running on a fixed predetermined path. For more info. NHTSA is investigating the process and technical data that Zoox relied on when certifying its robotaxi, to understand if it met federal requirements to travel on public roads. See a 9 min interview with Zoox’s CEO. 

More (American) people are afraid of autonomous cars, up 13 percentage points from 2022, according to a study by the AAA. The main reason for the ‘increased fear’ is the confusion created by today’s ADAS systems, which are hardly autonomous but perceived as such by consumers. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Flying cars 🚁

Archer begins construction of its eVTOL air taxi manufacturing plant. Production is expected in 2024, and the plant will allow production of 650 aircrafts per year. Lilium says it reached 250 kilometres per hour (or 155 miles per hour). 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Arrival published its 2022 report. Revenues aren’t expected before 2024, and in 2022 the company lost roughly $1bn, and ended the year with $205M in cash reserves, which is not enough to last 2023 unless a new investment arrives. 

Rivian plans to raise $1.3bn in cash via sale of convertible notes. The company has a good cash position, with $12.1bn on hand as of the end of 2022.

Tesla under investigation after steering wheels fell off two Model Y vehicles, due to a missing retaining bolt.  An estimated 121,089 Model Y vehicles are part of the investigation.

Ford is building an electric yellow school bus, based on its electric commercial van. 

Hi dear reader. If you’ve made it this far, I have a favour to ask. Could you share #movingpeople on your company's relevant slack / teams channel, to help me reach new audience? Thank you!

Gig economy 💰

New York approved a ride-hailing drivers’ pay raise of 9%. The move was blocked by Uber for two months, but now has been approved. Uber said the increase will be passed on to passengers. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

In other news 📰

Uber is considering spinning off its Uber Freight division. This could mean an IPO or the sale of the business. Uber Freight was formed in 2017, and acquired logistics firm Transplace in 2021 for $2.25bn. In Q4/22, Uber Freight brought in $1.5bn in revenue, 18% of Uber’s total revenue. Meanwhile, the company has laid off 150 employees, circa 3% of workforce, all coming from its digital brokerage activities.

Envisics, car hologram technology, raises $50M in series C from Hyundai Mobis, GM Ventures, Stellantis and Jaguar Land Rover’s InMotion Ventures, and is valued $500M post-money. Funds will be used to develop the product and facilitate international expansion. 

Beautiful data graphs on ‘Work from Home’ from the UK and US. Bottom line is: “a striking correlation between median household income and residents' travel to the workplace… the wealthier local authority residents are, the more likely that they are to have benefited from WFH policies and reduced their mobility to the office”. 

Thank you for reading Moving People. This post is public so feel free to share it.