Tier explores sale/merger, DB stops funding CleverShuttle, Treepz P2P carsharing marketplace and Uber, Lyft & DoorDash Q1 results

I launched my new website! It (no surprise) sits at movingppl.com. You're more than welcome to take a look. 

Last week I invited you for a mobility coffee chat and was very happy to talk to car-sharing, EV, bus travel and delivery companies, founders, investors and consultants. I am extending my invitation, just click on this calendly link and let’s talk mobility. Right now I’m also interested in EV CPOs.  

Uber & Lyft 🚘

This week Uber and Lyft both posted Q1 results - each painting a completely different picture. 

Uber reported Q1 results and saw stock rising by ±15%, from circa $32.7 to $37.75 close of trade Friday. Gross booking up 19% YoY to $31.4bn, revenue up 29% to $8.82bn, net loss was ‘only’ $157M, cushioned by gains in its investments in other companies. Delivery growth is 8%, with the mobility segment growing substantially, 40% growth. US ride-hailing market share grew by ±3 percentage-points to 74%. Uber shows a path to profitability, hence the strong positive reaction from the market. 

Lyft reported Q1 results and saw stock falling by almost 20%, from circa $10.7 to $8.62 close of trade Friday. Revenue for Q1 was $1bn, better than analysts expectations and up 14% YoY; net loss was $187.6M, also better YoY; and adjusted basis is positive. BUT the future outlook is gloomy, sending the stock down: the company expects Q2 to bring in ‘only’ same revenue numbers, and has refrained from publishing a full year guidance. The market simply does not believe in Lyft right now.

There had been talks about DoorDash (market cap: $24.6bn) buying Lyft ($3.26bn). Uber has ‘proven’ that in order to reach profitability you need economies of scale - i.e. UberEats - so it would make sense for a delivery company and a ride-hailing company to join forces. Lyft’s latest moves, concentrating on ride-hailing, cutting costs and bringing in a new non-founder CEO, should make the company more attractive for an acquisition. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedCleverShuttle 🇩🇪🚗

On Wednesday, CleverShuttle’s CEO LinkedIn post sent waves through the on-demand industry - “Deutsche Bahn informed us, completely unexpectedly, that it will no longer finance CleverShuttle… as a result, we had to file for bankruptcy today…  we have three months to find a new owner ”. 

CleverShuttle, acquired by DB in 2018,  is a vehicle operator for on-demand services. It is the clear market leader in Germany, and per Bruno Ginnuth, the CEO, “every single one of our 21 transports is profitable… we increased our revenue from €4M in 2021 to €11.7M in 2022… expected to generate more than €25M in 2023… Group EBIT has been better than planned every year since our strategy shift”. By strategy shift, Ginnuth is probably referring to the company’s focus in operating on-demand vehicles, moving away from on-demand operating software (e.g. Via, ioki). From the text we can also infer that CleverShuttle isn’t profitable yet. 

DB also owns ioki, and up to now had the ability to offer a turnkey software+operations solution offered by the two companies. By letting go of CleverShuttle, it could (1) risk its operational excellence of current transit operations, now needing to depend on traditional 3rd party vehicle operators; and (2) would lose the ability to offer a turn-key solution in future transit operations. This could potentially open up the market to competition.

DB says “it remains DB's strategy to further expand flexible on-demand transport”.  

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published(more) Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Citymapper (acquired recently by Via) is removing premium features paywall and introducing a new subscription plan, purely for removing ads. Premium features include lock-screen navigation, bus-only routes and turn-by-turn voice navigation. Removing price for premium features should encourage usage, a move that makes strategic sense for Via. 

Blusmart, an EV ride-hailing platform in India founded in 2019, raised $42M in equity and debt, bringing the total to $184M. Equity raise was $37M, with nearly 50% of it by the founders and leadership team. Blusmart is valued at $250M. 

In Japan, the government approved ‘dynamic pricing’ for ride-hailing. Prices will be subject for government oversight. Major players in Japan are GO, S.Ride, Uber and DiDi, and all use taxi drivers, as independent contractors are illegal. 

Bolt to triple its car fleet in the Baltics. The company agreed a €126M credit with banks. BusForFun expanded to Spain, and now is present in Italy, Switzerland and Spain, with offices in Venice, Milan, Lecce, Lugano, Barcelona and Ispra. Careem Jordan partners with Autohub, a Bosch maintenance centre. Careem signs an MOU with the Saudi Tourism Authority to introduce offerings and packages that will support tourism. Uber partners with Stripe. SWVL lacks an audit committee. 

A new microtransit service in rural West Quebec, Canada. Another service being developed by a small local company, CityWay, rather than utilising the abilities and experience of one of the leading companies in North America. 

Listen to a podcast by BABLE on the transport at Manchester, with Nick Fairclough, senior policy manager at TfGM. Manchester is one of the most interesting cities in Europe in terms of transportation, as the city is taking back control of its bus network. 

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

Treepz launches a new solution - P2P car-sharing - a marketplace in which people can register and offer to rent their cars for an hour, or longer, periods. Vehicles on the platform will include anything from cars through vans to buses and trucks. There are almost no P2P car-sharing solutions in Africa, perhaps because there are only 44 cars per 1,000 adults in Africa (2015 figures), making cars a luxury good. 

INVERS published its ‘European Free-Floating Carsharing mobility’ study. For the full report and to a summary and analysis by Augustin Friedel. Some takeaways: there are >50,000 cars in free floating service, of those 60% in Germany, Poland and Italy and the rest spread out across 25 countries. Both covid and the macroeconomic conditions are hard on both supply chains and customers WTP. Electric cars are 25% of the total. Less than <0.5% of all daily urban trips done with car sharing or micro mobility. 

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

Tier explores sale or merger. We know that Tier, which has up to now raised ±650M, has been recently looking to raise, working with Rothschild. It seems that funding conditions were not satisfactory for Tier, so now the company approached Qatalyst Partners to sort a potential tie-up. We don’t know who the potential tie-up would be with, potential candidates are Lime and Dott. 

Pony is a French micromobility company founded in 2017. The company markets bikes and scooters, allowing buyers to ‘privatise’ the vehicles and/or offer them for rent. When rented, Pony manages booking via an app and takes care of the logistics, sharing the profit with the owners. A typical micromobility business model, with CAPEX put by owners, or micro-investors, if you will. The company has 1,800 vehicles deployed in 14 cities in France and Belgium and has recently raised €6M (total funding €8.2M) to support expansion. Pony targets profitability in 2023. 

The Pony article brings an important insight I’d like to highlight - micromobility works very well in medium-size cities, where public transportation is less efficient. 

Dott launched a 2,000 scooter fleet in Madrid, integrated with Madrid’s public transportation.  Bird expands service to eight new markets (cities) across North America and Australia. Drover AI together with Spin, Chicago’s’ transport department and others, launching a pilot in which AI + computer vision will analyse rider behaviour to understand road conditions. 

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

DoorDash reports Q1: orders up 27% YoY to 512 million; revenue up 40% to $2.04bn, beating analysts expectations; continued investment in grocery and convenience store deliveries; net loss $161M; and the company increased 2023 outlook. In the hours after the report the stock went up circa 6%, only to fall a day later and bounce back to the same price it was before the report. 

foodpanda’s ‘pandaPatrol’ hits the road to engage and assist delivery partners. pandaPatrol is a pink bus dedicated to the ‘Ka-panda’ (riders/couriers) community, offering games and activities, as well as getting feedback from Ka-pandas. The bus will travel around the Philippines and stop at gas stations.   

Swiggy in talks to raise $300M in a $5.5bn valuation, half of its January 2022 valuation. Back then the company was valued at $10.7bn, and in March 2023 saw its valuation reduced to $8bn. Swiggy is a private company and is eyeing an IPO in the future. For reference, rival Zomato went public in July 2021 at a $12bn valuation, and today’s market cap is circa $6.7bn. Talks are still preliminary and could take months. 

Talabat, delivery in MENA, is launching a beta version of ‘talabat AI’, using ChatGPT. Users can request information including recipe ingredients and items available on talabat Mart, as well as nutritional information and cooking tips. 

Delivery Mates acquires XeroX, a BCorp company specialising in zero-emission on-demand delivery services. Snoonu, Qatar super app offering online shopping, food & grocery delivery and 3rd party logistics, raised $12M.  The Competition Authority in Israel fined Wolt ±$2.3M (8.5M NIS) for promoting restaurants that were not working with other delivery services, thus hurting competition. Kroger starts working with UberEats on sushi and floral delivery. Six months ago a similar deal was struck with DoorDash. Bringg and Uber expand delivery partnership to the UK. 

Hope you enjoy reading #movingpeople. If you do, please consider sharing it with others so that they may benefit from it too. 

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

Waymo doubles its commercial robotaxi service area in Phoenix, now covering 180 sq. miles (290 sq. km) in size, connecting many parts of the city, and allowing for up to four passengers in its driverless vehicles. Waymo is also expanding operations in San Francisco.

Beep and Mattamy Homes, a residential home builder, expand autonomous shuttle network.

Foretellix, provider of safety-driven verification and validation solutions for autonomous and ADAS systems, raised $43M, with Volvo and Nvidia participating in the round. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFlying cars 🚁

Joby Aviation raises $180M in equity. The company's market cap (NYSE:JOBY) is roughly $2.83bn. Funds will be used to get Joby’s DoD contract ready in time. The first two vehicles are to be delivered in early 2024, and Joby needs to upgrade its production capabilities. 

Lilium plans to raise $250M; Tencent has committed to $100M and to another $75M pending on matching. Lilium’s market cap these days is ±$327M (or $0.32bn), down from $3.3bn when the company SPACed; the stock is trading under $1, which puts the company in danger of being delisted from Nasdaq.  

EHang to perform demo flights in Israel, in cooperation with local company Cando Drones.   

The FAA released an updated blueprint for the airspace control required for eVTOLs. In a nutshell, in the foreseeable future they would be regulated as Helicopters are.

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

I’ve been asked and so want to stop and explain the OEM section, as I don’t cover most OEMs and bring only a handful of updates each week, in what is a vast industry. Well, this section is for new-age electric car, bus and truck OEMs - e.g. Arrival, Einride, Tesla - and electric specific innovative moves by established OEMs. 

Lordstown’s saviour Foxconn is threatening to pull funding. Lordstown has been trading under $1 for over 30 days (from March 7th), breaching the investment agreement between the companies (and is in danger delisting from Nasdaq). It is currently trading circa $0.34. In a regulatory filing the company said it will not be able to continue as a going concern should Foxconn withdraw funding and no other sources are found. 

Lordstwon also wrote something which to me is amazing: “the BOM [bill of materials cost] of the Endurance is currently, and expected to continue to be, substantially higher than our selling price…”. Wow. 

Arrival expects to report material weakness in internal controls. The company said it will also need additional time to file its 2022 annual report. 

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

The challenges of switching to EVs. A local coach operator in the UK posted on LinkedIn what it meant for him to get electric infrastructure: £83,000 (±$105,000) and 12 months. 

A New York Times read on the “Long Demise of the Stretch Limousine”. Once a symbol, the 2008 recession and ride-hailing services moved the industry to chauffeured vans, SUVs and buses. Today, the stretch limo represents less than 1% of services offered by limo companies, down from about 10% a decade ago. For more. 

Zoomo, an electric delivery bike manufacturer, made 8% of its workforce redundant (27 people), as a result of Milkrun’s collapse. The company expects profitability in 2024. 

Zipline, drone delivery, raised $330M, at a $4.2bn valuation, a 55% increase from its $2.7bn valuation reached two years ago. The company recently unveiled a new autonomous drone that can carry eight pounds of cargo at a range of 10 miles.