Uber taxi in Denmark, Gett’s acquisition canceled, Robinhood merges foodpanda and Joby $250M

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business  - a consultancy dedicated to "All Things Mobility", focused on growth. Get in touch to see how we can support your growth.

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Uber acquires Dantaxi, a leading taxi company in Denmark, with approximately 1,900 vehicles and 3,500 drivers, present in 75 of the 98 municipalities in the country. My analysis: this move is Uber’s answer to Bolt’s acquisition of Viggo, and continues a push from ride-hailing companies to command supply. In an autonomous future, managing vehicles will even be more important. 

MoveInSync acquires eFmFm; both are Indian employee transport companies. My take: This acquisition responds to the recent (early May) $40M investment in rival Routematic. 

The Gett acquisition is cancelled. Signed last year May, the past year has seen the Israeli antitrust authority question, and oppose, the deal. It might have gone through, but the buyer, Pango, withdrew. Gett is an profitable company; in the past 12 months ending in March 2025, the company had $520M in gross bookings and $17M EBITDA, and as of March 31st 2025, had Cash and cash equivalents of over $60M; it has a fully developed tech stack; European presence; and access to Israeli R&D talent. My take: expect a new buyer soon. 

I don’t usually report new hires as news - but this caught my attention: FREENOW hired a new Global Marketing Director, a guy called Tony Fletcher, who up until now was the VP Global Marketing at Too Good To Go. My take: we’ll see more major developments as part of the Lyft acquisition. 

Goa, India: draft regulations are set to approve the use of app-based taxis in the state, and ride hailing companies (Uber, Rapido, Ola) are gearing up for a 10 million tourists-a-year market. Previous attempts to launch ride-hailing in the state have been met with fierce and violent action from local taxis. Open to public feedback by June 19th, this proposal calls for 100% of the fare to be handed to the driver, meaning that the subscription based model (Which Rapido uses and Uber uses with rickshaws) will be in need here.  

Indonesia’s regulator issued a public warning regarding the potential merger between Grab and GoTo (Gojek). A formal deal has not been announced yet. 

The Indian Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) is looking into the advanced tipping function, which is widely used by all players, such as Uber, Ola, Rapido and Namma Yatri, saying that tipping should be optional, not as a tool to assure a faster service. 

Uber expands in Canada. The company is growing into smaller communities, going against Uride and taxis by offering drivers $500 incentive for completing 10 rides. Lalamove starts ride-hailing in Vietnam. Yango launches in Nepal. The company joins InDrive and other local players. Uber live in Slovenia, working with/via a local taxi company. Moovit in Burlington, North Carolina, powering Link Transit.  Roger French covers Wiltshire Connect DRT in two posts - a negative and a positive (!). 

FREENOW initiates a new fixed pricing scheme for Black Cabs traveling from outside inner-London towards the city. This pricing scheme is limited (no airports, no pre-booked) and is intended to help cabbies return to London full to continue earnings. 

Swvl launches Luxury Travel - premium vehicles, chauffeur experience. See here. DiDi Egypt is launching Comfort - a premium service with newer cars and drivers with 4.7 star and above rating. Yango Pakistan launches ER - Electric Rickshaws. Lyft brings back pooled rides at airports, a more price-sensitive option, reversing a decision from two years ago. 

FREENOW partners with OUIGO, a budget train operator; the partnership sees those buying a OUIGO ticket referred to the FREENOW app for last mile travel, with a discount. Uber opens Delhi Metro ticket purchasing via the ONDC platform. 

Bolt implemented, and now defended in court, the TOMS VAT scheme in the UK. Seoul Court clears Kakao of unfair taxi call practices and penalties allegations. Uber Advertising launches in New York. Advertising on the “JourneyTV platform” (i.e. scream) allows targeted ads and access to an average viewing time of 120 seconds. FlixTrain (!) ordered 65 new European high-speed trains. 

Safeboda is 10 years old. A guide to taxi colour in Thailand. 

How do you launch a new on-demand mobility service, in a new city, without any prior knowledge of how many vehicles you’ll need and where to best position those vehicles? 

That was the challenge facing Wayla, a vanpooling solution launching in Milan.

The solution? SWITCH’s AI platform Urbiverse simulated operations before launch, helping Wayla plan fleet size and deployment. Four months later, real-world data showed 92.6% accuracy of the simulation engine.

Read about it here: AI Simulations Powering Strategic Mobility Decisions: the Wayla case - SWITCH - Street WITCHer and there is more on SWITCH’s website. Welcome to ping SWITCH for more.  

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

MOL Limo launches “Rent A Car”, a new rental option that allows rental of up to 60 days and international travel. This adds to an existing few-days urban-focused rental option that already exists on the platform. 

Zity closes the gap between car-sharing (per minute) and rental (per day) by integrating with Mobilize and displaying both options in one app. 

The story of CHECK, a Dutch moped and car-sharing operator.

Micromobility 🚲🛴

FREENOW integrates with Bird in Italy, Spain and France. New cities to follow. 

Dott riders can now reserve scooters and bikes - 10 minutes in advance. 

Voi expands throughout London. Bird in Stony Plain, Canada. Bird in Piedmont Park Conservancy, Atlanta. Lime debuts small seated e-bikes in Austin. Long Beach to begin a year-long e-scooter pilot program, along a bike lane and limited to 15 mph (25 km/h) and in some places, 5 mph (8 km/h). Veo debuts first shared dockless e-cargo bike in North America. 

Bird exits Oswego, NY. The council posted that the decision, based on profitability, was sudden. Basildon, Essex, UK, discontinues e-scooter trial due to safety concerns. Dott was the operator. 

Denver implementing tougher scooter regulation - requiring sidewalk detection technology to make sure scooters are parked correctly and do not ride on sidewalks. Both Lime and Bird, micromobility operators in the city, support. Law is expected to enter into effect in 2026, before a new city scooter tender is expected to be published. 

St. Petersburg, Florida (!), replacing Veo in a new tender and 900 new scooters from Lime and Spin (450 each) will hit the streets. Each scooter must have GPS equipped with geofencing tech and 15 mph (25 km/h) speed limit. 

New Mobility Tech VC Trends reports from Pitchbook - download here. Key takeaways: 

• 2025 started slowly, with $3 billion raised across 153 deals, 11.6% less deals than previous quarter (Q1/24) and 68.7% decline in funding (ec. The Waymo deal). 

• Key deals include Saronic Technologies (Marine) with a $600M raise; Shield AI (AI, autonomous air) with $240M; and UVeye with $191M.

Delivery 🍽🧺

In Thailand, Robinhood (2% market share) merges foodpanda (5%). Delivery Hero was going to take foodpanda out of Thailand, when earlier in May Robinhood made a move to make the most of the exit. Grab and Line Man, with ±40% each, dominate the market.  

Bolt launches food delivery in Bulgaria. Lalamove enters the UAE, the company's 14th global market. foodpanda Cambodia signs an MOU with emart24, convenience store chain, to launch 24-hour delivery. 

Uber launches on‑demand white-label B2B logistics services through India’s ONDC network. Initially focused on food delivery, the service will expand to ecommerce parcels, groceries, pharmacy orders and healthcare shipments.

Swiggy introduces ‘Drops’, offering limited-edition, chef-curated dishes. How does it work: partner restaurants create unique dishes for a limited time; those are then pushed via the Swiggy platform plus social media marketing efforts; with orders fulfilled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Also Instamart removed Swiggy from its brand, to establish its own identity. 

Baemin partners with a local streaming platform to launch a bundled subscription service. Its rival, Coupang, operates its own streaming service. Coupang itself is under fair trade investigation for its bundled service. 

DoorDash ends voice-ordering product pilot for restaurants - “We scale or wind down initiatives based on many factors including product-market fit, customer demand and others”. Zomato adds an additional service charge for long range deliveries, for orders over 4km. Morocco’s competition authority is looking at Glovo for anti-competitive practices in the meal delivery market. To be continued. Rappi and World ID pilot on a "door-to-door verification" service. 

I love meeting new people and learning about innovation. Let’s get-to-know.

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Tesla gearing up for its robotaxi (no driver) launch, on June 12th, in Austin. We don’t know a lot about the launch, but can expect 10-20 Model Y vehicles to initiate the operations; remote-operations will be active (as with all AV players); and a limited operating zone. To be continued. Btw, Musk left DOGE and is cutting his political spending. 

Zoox to start testing in Atlanta. The company said it completed its initial mapping phase and will begin testing in the summer. Zoox is currently testing in even cities: Las Vegas, San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, LA, and Austin. 

Waymo begins testing vehicles in Houston, as part of a road trip that also includes Orlando and San Antonio. Waymo expands in San Francisco, “to South Bay and nearly all of San Jose”. 

DB launches a (first German) L4 public transport operation, working with NIO and Mobileye and subsidiary ioki. Human driver + remote control centre included in this off-peak, sparsely populated operating zone. 

eVersum begins ‘Harlander’ autonomous bus testing in Ireland. The vehicle will run on a ±15 minutes loop route with six stops. 

Oxa partners with Bradshaw EV, integrating into two off-road models: the T800 8-tonne tow tractor and the Club Car Carryall 500 utility vehicle. My analysis: much of the UK industry (e.g. Oxa. Aurrigo) is focusing on off-road applications, due to inability to compete with US and Chinese players (Waymo, WeRide etc.) and the lack of supporting regulatory environment in the UK on on-road applications. 

UK: the government expects robotaxis only in H2/27, two years from now. The country does see some pilots, mostly with buses and shuttles, mandating a safety driver at all times. 

Zoox issues a second software recall, following a collision with an e-scooter in San Francisco on May 8th. It appears that an e-scooterist struck a Zoom from the back while driving at low speeds and fell to the ground next to the vehicle, with the vehicle continuing moving afterwards. According to Zoox, the e-scooterist declined an offer of medical attention for minor injuries. 

Einride and Rocsys partner to demo hands-free charging. Also Einride’s CEO departs, replaced by CFO and will become chairman of the board. 

Flying cars 🚁

Toyota invests $250M in Joby, gaining 15.3% in the company, preferred manufacturing partner status and the right to operate in Japan. 

On May 20th, Culper Research, short sellers, published a report on Archer: “we believe that over the past 12 months, Archer has systematically misled, deceived, or outright lied to investors about virtually every supposed milestone related to its development and testing of its eVTOL aircraft, Midnight”. For the full report. The stock market doesn’t seem too concerned.

Wisk (by Boeing) and NASA sign a five-year research partnership to advance autonomous flight. Also Wisk has a new CEO. 

OEMs 🛺⚡️

NAVEE 🛴 closed a $200M Series B funding round. The company has over 200,000 users in over 30 countries and regions. 

Tesla’s Cybertruck have a demand problem and an “insane” depreciation problem; 

Also Tesla’s European sales drop by 49% YoY and its Semi-Truck future is uncertain. 

Ole Electric’s board approves a ±$198M (1,700 crore rupee) debt raise, as IPO seems further away. Zapp Electric faces Nasdaq delisting over rule non-compliance due to low price share and low market cap. Rivian secures $1 billion infusion from VW after meeting Q2 profit goal. 

Revel Bikes in the past weeks: had 3 new models out -> ceased operations nine days later -> acquired by Adam Miller, the original founder, from the PE he sold the company to in 2021 (and continued as CEO up until 2024). 

Podbike - the end. 

Gig economy 💰

Hello Bounce Daily - rentals for gig workers.

Zoomo scaling in France with Uber Eats.

In other news 📰

People (including myself) don’t like car touchscreens and Automakers are reversing course. 

I love meeting new people and learning about innovation. Let’s get-to-know.

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Andreas Schörling was promoted to Senior Managing Director @ Flix.

Chris Coote is the new Director of Product @ Dexory. 

Darren Capes is the new Head of Road Infrastructure Technology @ the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT).

Richard De Veer is the new Director Corporate Solutions (ai) @ Just Eat Takeaway. 

Saurabh Kabra is the new Head of Non Endemic Monetization @ Zepto. 

Sigfried RJ Eisenmeier is the new Director of Public Policy, External Affairs @ DiDi.

Tim Rossanis is the new Senior Vice President @ Turo. 

Timothy Rose  is the new President @ Hoffmann Transportation Group.

Congrats and good luck!

Thank you for reading #movingpeople. If you like what you're reading, please share it with your friends and colleagues so they can benefit from it too.