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- The Uber Files, Pakistan’s highest-valued startup Airlift closes, SWVL acquires Urbvan and drops, Madaxo buys Uber’s Routematch
The Uber Files, Pakistan’s highest-valued startup Airlift closes, SWVL acquires Urbvan and drops, Madaxo buys Uber’s Routematch
A week full of news. Airlift, delivery platform valued $275M, crashes after failing to raise a series C. SWVL acquires Urbvan and sees its stock crash. Modaxo acquires Routematch from Uber, signalling that Uber might be exiting its ‘Uber Transit’ efforts.
Gett to be profitable by end-of-year by focusing on current business; Mobileye to delay IPO; May Mobility raises $111M; Argo AI, Arrival, Tesla, Rivian and Gopuff layoffs; Doordash closing the salad-making robot unit it acquired 18 months ago; Deliveroo in the UAE; Walmart into EVs and a salvage yard startup raises.
And the Uber files - a behind-the-scenes detailed journey on Uber’s aggressive and unlawful expansion during 2013-2017. Will we see a reckoning?
Elon suggested I give this new thing a try, so follow me on Twitter.
Let’s start #movingpeople.
The UBER Files 📂
By now you’ve probably at least heard of the Guardian’s journalist achievement which is the ‘Uber Files’, also a collaborative journalist effort by the ICIJ, detailing how Uber aggressively expanded and lobbied her way to reach global scale. The ‘Uber Files’ are 124,000 documents, emails and instant messaging chats, covering 40 countries over the period of 2013-2017.
Mark MacGann, Uber’s former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, leaked the documents because Uber, and himself, sold a lie to people about the benefits to drivers of the company’s gig-economy model. It is a good thing he did. This is his story.
While the details themselves are new and you should definitely take an hour over the weekend to go though, it isn’t really shocking. We all know that Uber had a ‘Kill Switch’ to evade authorities when police raided; that it disregarded local legislation; that it tracked local officials such as London’s TfL boss; and that it used a fake app to evade police.
The main question for me is what’s next? Clearly laws were broken, and the documents reveal that specific people know it in real time. Will we see countries and administrations hold people accountable? To be continued.
Airlift shutting down 💥
Airlift, once a shining tech scaleup valued at $275M, is shutting down. Airlift was founded in Pakistan in March 2019 as a smart bus solution, and pivoted into quick delivery during the pandemic, raising $109M in the process, including a series B of $85M in August 2021. Now, it is shutting down.
In May, the company went into restructuring, closing South Africa, reducing the number of cities from 11 to 3 and cutting corporate headcount from 349 to 277 employees, reducing the burn by 66%. It reached order level profitability and was 6-9 months away from company level profitability (free-cash-flow), but still needed another round. So it went into Series C1, and met a ‘funding crunch’ - Airlift couldn't get additional funding, and decided to close shop.
SWVL acquires Urbvan 🇲🇽and drops 📉
SWVL acquires Urbvan, its 5th acquisition the past year, expanding into Mexico. Founded in 2016, Urbvan started as a commute focus solution, and today offers city and intercity (‘Travel’) transport, group rentals and corporate commute services (‘Teams’). Urbvan had a partnership with Uber back in 2020, but it didn’t stick. Now it's joining forces with SWVL.
The markets don’t seem to like the acquisition, sending SWVL’s shares down from $6.8 to $3.2 (16:00 US ET, July 14th).
Modaxo 💻acquires Routematch 🚌 from Uber 🚗
Routematch was acquired by Modaxo and TripSpark, in what is a logical tactical move for Modaxo and a potential strategic step for Uber.
Routematch is a fixed-route and demand-responsive transport platform, offering software for trip planning, vehicle tracking, payment and other tools for public transit, education and paratransit services. The company works with more than 350 transit agencies in the US. By acquiring Routematch, Modaxo is expanding its customer base and adding tech abilities to its portfolio, which consists of Trapeze, Transloc, TripSpark and a dozen more companies in the public transport value chain.
Uber acquired Routematch back in July 2020, adding the company to ‘Uber Transit’, its public transit micromobility unit. As any other mobility company, Uber is striving for profitability (or free-cash-flow), and this move should mean that Uber is moving away from the public transit domain.
Ride-hailing / DRT 🚙🚘
GETT is facing a legal challenge in Israel which could quickly escalate to a real strategic challenge. A ±$5.7M (20M ILS) class action lawsuit has been filed against the company, for charging reservation fees in random rides which were hailed on the street. This could potentially be a big blow for the company, which had to exit Russia leaving only the Israeli and UK markets, and has seen its SPAC cancelled and valuation reduced to $265M from a high of $1.5bn. Note the company might be required to forgo future similar revenues.
Swedish investment fund VNV Global is the largest shareholder in Gett with 25% and a controlling stake. In an interview while in Israel, the fund’s CEO’s said that they want Gett to be profitable by end-of-year, and to do so the company will concentrate on taxi business in the UK and Israel. Remember that Gett’s SPAC was designed to turn it into a ground transport management company. Not anymore.
Grab Malaysia launches ‘Intercity’, allowing users to purchase intercity public transport tickets via the Grab app. Grab collaborated with Splyt and Easybook to adapt the service onto the platform. Grab introduces ‘heatwave surcharge’ in Vietnam. The surcharge will apply when temperature hits over 35 celsius. Grab and Singtel consortium bags Malaysia digital banking licence. Remember Grab is a super-app, and payments are part of the offer, next to ride-hailing, deliveries etc.
Bolt ride-hailing in Helsinki, offering a 100% carbon neutral service. Article has the pricing structure for riders. Italian taxi drivers strike over Uber expansion plan. Via launches public, on-demand shared rides in Chandler, Arizona. Via in Hampton Roads. Liftango joins ACT in the US.
Autonomous 🤖
May Mobility closed a $111M series C round, bringing total funding to $194M. Money will go to R&D and continued expansion in the US and Japan; the company will continue to work with Toyota. May Mobility aims for fully autonomous shuttles by 2023.
Ford and VW backed Argo AI lays off 150 employees, circa 6% of global workforce, and shuts down DC operations, continuing focus on Miami and Austin.
Skateboarders vandalise Waymo.
A Wired long read on Cruise robotaxis and the disconnections they experienced over the course of the past months. The robotaxi shut-down that happened last week was not the 1st time Cruise vehicles ‘lost touch’.
Delivery 🍽🧺
DoorDash is the leading US delivery platform, with 59% market share. An analysis on the mistakes UberEats (24%) made with McDonalds. Now the GrubHub (13%) deal with Amazon is a red flag for DoorDash, as also are the inflationary worries and the regulation concerns on employment classification are for the industry.
Gopuff cuts 10% of its workforce, circa 1,500 employees, and closes 76 warehouses, about 12% of its network.
DoorDash is closing Chowbotics, the robot-salad-making startup it acquired 18 months ago, laying off about 35 people. DoorDash will continue to focus on its core business: deliveries.
Deliveroo partners with supermarket Choithrams to launch quick-delivery in the UAE. The company is late to the market, with Talabat, Careem, and Noon in the market for months.
GoGetters, a premium food delivery app, raises £350,000 and is now valued at £5M. BurgerFi and Gopuff expand delivery nationwide. Deliveroo fights seagulls. DoorDash glitch results in hundreds of free food orders, due to a payment processing error. People noticed and shared on Twitter, causing many ‘free’ orders. Now the company is busy charging fraudulent orders.
Manufacturers 🛺⚡️
Arrival to cut up to 30% (!) of workforce. Rivian considers laying off 700 employees, 5% of its workforce. Tesla faces increased competition and sees deliveries fall in Q2 by 18%, 250,000 units down from 310,000 units in Q1. And the company is laying off 229 autopilot employees. If you were laid off from Tesla, most likely you’ll work for Rivian, Apple or Amazon. See this chart using LinkedIn data on where talent goes. Problem is, those companies are laying off as well…
Walmart orders 4,500, with an option to order up to 10,000 units, of Canoo’s delivery EVs. In the terms of the deal, Canoo is prevented from selling to Amazon. Also, Walmart could end with >20% shares in Canoo, resembling Amazon’s stake in Rivian.
Toyota Connected Cabin Awareness video. This is a bit older (May) but I’ve just run across the video now. A system designed to save lives by identifying when children and pets are left behind in cars. Super important - so sharing with you.
Flying cars 🚁☁️
EHang secures additional $150M in credit from Guangzhou Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China. Ehang stock (NASDAQ:EH) reacted by falling from circa $9 per share to $8.2, indicating some think this isn’t the best way to raise cash.
The AIR ONE, an Israeli eVTOL, completes its first full-scale test flight. See Video.
Micromobility 🛴🚲
FREE NOW brings Italian RideMovi's 5,700 electric bikes into its app. Bolt launched e-bike rentals pilot in Sligo, Ireland, with 100 bikes, and wants to have 2,000 of its ‘e-bikes’ deployed in locations across Ireland. Voi expands operating area and hours in Birmingham.
In other news 📰