Uzum raises $114M, Ember £11M, fisker slashes prices & Dott exits London

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business  - a consultancy dedicated to "All Things Mobility".  This week highlighting the (anti-bias) Strategy Review product. 

I’ll be at Intertraffic Amsterdam on April 16th-17th. DM me if you'd like to meet there. 

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Ember raises £11M ($14M) to build a UK-wide EV intercity bus service. Ember launched in 2020 in Scotland with its first bus, and today has 24 buses running. The company is looking to expand in the UK and develop a full stack solution, including its own software solution. 

Minneapolis - the city council is reevaluating their driver wage ordinance, as state data on ride hailing wages is brought forward and under pressure from the Governor and the Mayor. Next vote is due on April 25th, shortly before the deadline of May 1st, and will probably lead to a new ordinance that will see Uber & Lyft staying. Meanwhile, the Driver Cooperative and MOOV are looking to move into the city. For a detailed read. 

Uber launches Uber Car Seat, for now available only in LA and NYC. Parents immediately understand how important it is to get this service right. 

UK: Uber heavily advertising its Black Taxi service to drivers, looking to sign up as many as willing. Bolt partners with Aviva to offer pension to drivers. Veezu acquires Aqua Cars in its first 2024 acquisition. 

Kakao Mobility is still in turmoil; reappoints its CEO despite the state financial watchdog's recommendation to replace him amid allegations of accounting fraud. SWVL turns 7. 

Shoffr, Bengaluru-based luxury EV ride-hailing, raised $1M via a “user-only” community investment. Vingroup to launch EV taxi service in the Philippines. Barcelona approves in-taxi cameras. Hong-Kong is still divided on the subject. 

ioki milestone - transported over 5 million passengers. Connecticut to launch 13 microtransit services within a four-month period. The services are a two year pilot with extension option, run by Via, Spare, Routematch and RideCo. 

Karos (carpooling) in Hamburg - 3 weeks since launch, 1,250 users (±400 a week) and 610 carpool rides (±200 a week). 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Getaround 2023 results: gross bookings $204M, 16% YoY growth; revenue $72.7M, 22%, representing a margin of 35.6% of gross bookings; EBITDA net loss of $72M - as much of total revenue!; GAAP loss of $113.9M. For comparison, Turo finished 2023 with $880M in revenue and $14.7M in net profit. Recently Getaround completed a change of leadership with a new Chairman and new CEO, and is now pulling out of NYC due to the city’s mandated high insurance costs. Clearly, much more work is needed to bring Getaround to profitability. 

Hiyacar secures £1.2M investment to drive B2B and carsharing expansion. Zoomcar partners with ACKO Drive, a car buying platform, to help hosts expand their fleets. Peg City Car Co-op, a Winnipeg car-sharing company founded in 2011, has 4,000 members and 140 vehicles.  

Julia Kinner on P2P customer segmentation - breaking down customers’ needs. 

I love meeting new people, learning about mobility innovation and exchanging opinions. Want to get-to-know and talk mobility? Let’s set up a half-hour coffee chat. 

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Tier and Dott complete their merger. The road ahead calls for aligning operating models and hardware across territories. 

Dott exits scooters in London due to the city being “financially unstable”. The company withdrew its bikes scheme back in November. This leaves Lime and Voi in the city. Voi extended in Liverpool to 2026. Neuron and Bird back in Oshawa, Ontario. Bird returns to Redwood, California. Bird back in Windsor, Canada. Only Lime (and not Bird) in West Hollywood. 

Delivery 🍽🧺

Uzum, Uzbekistan’s first tech unicorn, raised $114M in a $1.16 billion valuation, on the way to become the country’s super-app. Food delivery at core, Uzum also offers banking, BNPL and other business solutions. The company/app has 12 million monthly average users and according to the PR release, in 2023 has a “net profit just shy of $100 million”. WHAT?!

Swiggy records $207M loss for the nine months ending December 2023 (part of FY 23-24); in FY 22-23 the company made a loss of $±500M. Revenue for the 9 month period was $1.02 billion, an improvement from the FY 22-23 revenue of $1.05 billion. The paper from which the news “leaked” is a part of Swiggy’s IPO. 

Coupang is wavering delivery fees for paid members, in an attempt to get nearer 65% market leader Baemin. Yogiyo, 18% and Coupang, 17%, are battling for 2nd place. And Coupang plans to invest billions of $ to bring its fast Rocket Delivery service to more parts of the country. 

Ingrid, shipping delivery platform, raises €21M. Food delivery drones in Sweden, by foodora, Tele2 and aerit. Getir UK partners with Too Good To Go. Glovo and e-Mobility Rentals expand partnership to offer e-vehicles to couriers. Bolt Ghana launches Food for Business. talabat to be default app on Xiaomi phones in Iraq. 

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

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Tesla to offer US customers a free 1-month trial of Full Self Driving. NYC announces a new permitting system for autonomous vehicles - mandating safety drivers. Autonomous bus trials in Hiratsuka City, Japan, by Tier IV and Isuzu. Video. Schiphol airport conducts trial with self-driving buses, working with Ohmio. A rumour has it that MOIA is about to begin public autonomous rides in Germany this year. Kodiak establishes an advisory council. 

Steering the Future: An Overview of Current and Upcoming Regulations in Automated Driving. The paper looks at EU regulation and focuses on Sweden, Germany, France and the UK. 

Flying cars 🚁

Lessons learned from Joby’s 2022 eVTOL crash accident - a detailed review of the NTSB report. “Dive speed of 208 mph (334 kph)… in conjunction with an anomalous propeller tilt… resulted in unanticipated aerodynamic interactions… leading to a non-uniform blade pitch increase beyond its design limitations… likely caused a load exceedance which resulted…”

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Fisker slashes prices of Ocean SUV amid debt troubles. Slashing indeed, with prices dropping by 35%-40%. This move aims to generate cash while Fisker tries to save itself from loan default. 

The very end - Arrival sells manufacturing equipment to Canoo. For Canoo, this will save on capital expenditures, while Canoo struggles to move beyond prototype. 

Nikola inaugurates first HYLA modular hydrogen refuelling station

Gig economy 💰

New Jersey is battling Lyft over $17M in taxes originating from misclassification of drivers. In 2022 the state settled a similar case with Uber for $100M in taxes. 

Uber drivers in Nigeria are suffering from the recent heat wave.  

In other news 📰

Why did CAKE fail - thoughts by Dominique Dutronc, former GM Europe. It is a fairly long article, detailing a multiple of internal mistakes as Dominique perceives them, that have to do with customer centricity, lack of clear sales & marketing strategy, inefficient internal operations and a lack of mature proposition for service and maintenance. A MUST READ for any founder / C-level startup leader.  

In India. A government scheme provides skills, tools and drone equipment to 1,000 women in rural areas, with the aim of integrating women into the agricultural supply chain. 

Americans' average daily travel distance, mapped.  

The state of SPAC mobility companies. It doesn’t look good for the vast majority. 

Thank you for reading #movingpeople. I’m always happy to get-to-know over a coffee chat (Calendly set-up).