Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕

Wayve raises $1.2 billion on a $8.6 billion valuation, with $300M additional funding from Uber contingent on a successful London robotaxi launch. Wayve focuses on (1) robotaxi services, which the company is getting ready to launch in London in partnership with Uber; and (2) ADAS system for the likes of Mercedes, Nissan and Stellantis, which all invested in the round. Other investors include NVIDIA and Microsoft, both are companies with ties to Wayve’s operations. To put the numbers in perspective, Waymo’s (post-money) valuation is $126 billion, Mobileye’s market cap is circa $7.4 billion. 

Waymo launches commercial robotaxi services in four new cities - Dallas, Houston and San Antonio in Texas and Orlando, Florida - bringing the total number of cities to 10. Also Waymo starts testing in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is involved in an accident on the first day; and begins testing on Austin highways. The company’s fleet size is estimated at 3,000 vehicles, which are offering close to 500,000 rides a week. 

Uber sets up Uber Autonomous Solutions - designed to commercialize autonomous solutions around the world. The new unit is organised across three areas: Infrastructure (AV data for training, regulatory support, fleet financing); User Experience (in-car experience, customer support, product development support); and Fleet Operations (fleet management, remote assistance, field operations, insurance) - with the goal to accelerate autonomous deployments at lower cost-per-mile.  

My takeaways. 

1) Commercialisation is years away. Don’t be blinded by Waymo’s 10 commercial deployments - they are indeed commercial, but are very heavily subsidized. Unless you’re raising $16 billion, you can’t scale without at least a reasonable adjusted operational profitability - and it is not clear how far the industry is from that. Uber’s solution hits the spot here. 

2) Uber’s stock has been hit by investors worried that Uber will not last the autonomous age, as the company does not have its own autonomous tech unit. The stock is down from circa $100 in October 2025 to circa $75 today. This new unit should (might) calm investors. 

And Uber acquires parking reservation app SpotHero. Launched in 2011, SpotHero is present in over 400 cities and 13,000 parking facilities in North America. Note the strategy: Uber intends to offer SpotHero to USERS (not just drivers) - which could use the Uber app to reserve parking for their OWN VEHICLE in airports, for events etc. In addition, Uber will use the reach with parking facilities to manage their electric rollout and driver-related parking needs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

May Mobility expanding autonomous footprint in Japan. The latest service launched last month in Saito City for a 30 day demo project connecting the city centre to a tourist attraction on the outskirts.  

Kazakhstan is looking to update its gig-economy tax system, taxing directly from the turnover, not profits. It is suggested that platforms deduct a percentage of drivers’ turnover directly to the taxi authority. Bolt expanded its taxi services to 21 counties outside Dublin and Cork.

DRT, Bus-Based Mobility & AV shuttles 🚍🚌

Lukas Foljanty’s (excellent) 2025 On-Demand Transit Market Report is out - key takeaways: 

⬇️ 2025 slowing down: ~375 new projects launched globally, 15% fewer than in 2024. Net market growth slowed to 215 new active projects

🚌 Competitive landscape steady with 50+ active solution providers - Via #1 with a global market share of 24%; Spare at #2

🌎 North America, Japan and South Korea saw the most growth; paratransit is leading the US

🏛️ Government-funded pilots are fading away - and the true commercial size of the market will be revealed in a couple of years 

For the full report and the active projects map. I strongly recommend reading the full report. 

Lukas also covers Via’s IPO and the Downtowner acquisition in detail. My key takeaways: 

1) Via’s future is in operation. DRT-tech has become a commodity; the TAM and revenue opportunities are much larger in operations (see image); and it enables Via to offer an end-to-end solution. Via has been practicing operating fleets in the UK, so this should not come as a complete surprise. 

2) From reading Via’s FY25 report it seems the company paid $40M for Downtowner. This is a bit baffling, as Downtowner do not seem to possess any major tech or industry segment advantages over Via, and the price seems high (coming out at roughly $400k per operating service). Over the years I’ve seen Via execute a very clever M&A strategy, so not sure what happened here. Readers are welcomed to inform me. 

3) For the full Via FY25 report, which saw 29% increase in revenue to $434.3M and an operating loss of $76.6M. 

SCALAR People Mobility, by ZF, is shutting down. ZF has been laying off / selling a number of divisions / units in order to both focus and reach profitability, and the People Mobility unit is another segment that will close. 

BasiGo, Kenyan electric bus startup, enters fixed-route commuting, as a SaaS product offered to local Saccos - transport cooperative societies that own and manage matatus (informal transport vehicles). 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Socar returns to operational profitability

GreenMobility pilots smoke detection tech by INVERS. GetGosigns a data-sharing MOU with the Singaporean Land Transport Authority (LTA).Greencar to expand its fleet in Incheon (South Korea) to 600 vehicles.

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Dott reports €173M revenue in 2025 and €7M in Adjusted EBITDA and an EBITDA loss of €4M. The €11M (between +7 and -4) is attributed to one-off restructuring costs. To put things in perspective, last week Voi reported €178.2M revenue, €18.6 EBITDA and a loss of €7.6M in Operating Profit. 

Also Voi grew its subscription revenue mix from 31% to 39% in 2025; is launching Voi Business; and wins to operate in Biel, Switzerland. 

Groningen, the Netherlands: Voi and Dott will each roll out 400 electric shared bicycles in the city, replacing Bolt; Check to continue e-scooter operations expanding to 600 vehicles; and Moby to roll out 50 e-cargo bikes. 

Nextbike wins a contract for a city bike in Toruń, Poland. 

Lime introduces new benefits as part of its LimePrime subscription plan - these include flat-rate rides, more discounted fares and more. The new plan will be rolled out across the US, the UK, Italy, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

Forest pilots in-app reaction-time based sobriety check, implemented on riders based on location and time-of-day. The check itself is 

HD Rain is an insurance broker underwriting weather risk - Enzo Lanoue shared with me that due to the increase in rainy days in France in 2026, operators in the five main cities listed here have lost estimated revenues of €1.2M to €2.7M.

Delivery - from bikes & cars to bots & drones 🍽🧺

DoorDash winds down operations in Qatar & Singapore (Deliveroo) and in Japan & Uzbekistan (Wolt). A couple of weeks ago DoorDash published its 2025 financial report, showing good results which sent the stock up circa 10%. 

Swiggy shuts down Snacc, its 15-minute food delivery, due to profitability concerns.  The service has been running for just under a year. There is fierce competition in the Indian rapid-delivery space, and the market as a whole is experiencing losses. 

Speedbird raises $5.8M bridge round to scale drone deliveries in Brazil; iFood is a strategic investor. 

Uber partners with Manna Drones for drone delivery in Ireland, with the goal of launching a joint commercial service. 

After hitting Foodinho (Glovo’s Italian brand) with a one year supervision of a judicial administrator for exploiting riders, Italian regulators are knocking on Deliveroo’s doors - for the same reason. The company has been put under supervision and the investigation into rider exploitation is going on. 

Coco introduces its next gen delivery bot - the Coco 2. Fully autonomous, drives on roads and bike lanes (at speed of up to 13 mph, or 21 km/h), sidewalks, and indoors - and reliable in extreme weather.  

AV Freight & Logistics 🚛🚜

Einride raises $113M via PIPE ahead of its public (SPAC) debut, set for H2/26. Einride is valued at $1.35 billion pre-money - which is down from the $1.8 billion initially reported when first announced. While Einride does operate a few autonomous trucks (to which extent of autonomy I am not sure), most of the company’s 200 trucks are electric driver operated. 

Harbinger, Electric truck OEM, acquires ADAS company Phantom AI. Harbinger, which has been using Phantom ADAS in its electric trucks, has already signed (an unknown) commercial agreement with ZF, which will offer Phantom’s tech to the OEM it works with. 

Bot Auto to begin driverless freight operations with Ryan Transportation. The use case: overnight run between Houston and Dallas, a roughly 200 miles (320 km) 3 hour drive.  Torc Robotics expands autonomous truck testing to Michigan Public Roads. 

In other news 📰

Uber and Joby partner to allow booking of an eVTOL from the Uber app. But let’s not get too excited, because: (a) this partnership was available, albeit for a limited time, when operating under Blade, before Joby aviation acquired Blade’s people operations; and (b) First commercial (bookable) service expected in Dubai in H2/26. I’m writing this as Iran is sending missiles to Dubai, so we might see that pushed back to 2027. 

Archer sues Vertical Aerospace over alleged patent infringement. 

Spiro, e-bikes manufacturer and battery-swap network operator, raises $50M to facilitate growth. To date, Spiro deployed 80,000+ electric motorcycles, operates 2,500+ battery-swapping stations, and has completed over 30 million battery swaps.

Tesla sues California DMV to reverse the ruling that found Tesla engaged in false advertising with its “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” marketing. This comes a few days after Tesla changed the names, to comply with the ruling. In a different story and a different part of the world, Tesla is fighting in court aFrench beverage company which is allegedly “trademark squatting” on the CyberCab trade name, after Tesla neglected to protect the name prior to the public launch. 

Google Maps can fully operate in South Korea, now that data restrictions, initially placed for national security reasons, have been compromised. To operate, Google will need to keep data in the country, maintain coordinate and image limitations on military and national security sites. Remember - South Korea is at war with the North. 

TIER IV joins a Japan Ministry of Defense project to advance unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) deployment for security operations. 

An updated NYC For-Hire Vehicle dashboard: 

Beware of fake recruiters. They are everywhere lately. Remember - you never have to pay out of pocket for training or as part of the recruitment process. Use AI to double check email addresses, names, messages. 

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

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Adam Halsey is the new VP, Business Development @ Electreon. 

Amit Regev is the new CEO at Flytrex. 

Dmitry Chu is the new Head of Rider Experience - Ops @ Voi Technology. 

Ferdinand Burgersdijk is the new Trainer - data governance, digitalisation and ITS @ UITP. 

Ha Oun Son is the new Country Manager South Korea @ Archer. 

Jackson Lester is the new Product Manager @ Waymo. Congrats and well deserved Jackson!

JC Porter is the new Director of Parking and Transportation Services @ Arizona State University.

Luca Volpi is the new Senior Regional Legal Counsel - Markets & Revenue @ Lime. 

Marion Humeau is the new Directrice Experience Client Care Service France @ Renault Group.

Mike Evans-Ford is the new Local Authority Lead @ JustPark. 

Patrick Kenney is the new Digital Adoption Representative @ Caterpillar. 

Sara Crifasi is the new Senior Counsel, Autonomous Mobility and Delivery @ Uber. 

Sara Sloman is the new Global Partnerships Director @ Paythru. 

Tom Anstee is the new Sales and Partnership Co-ordinator @ Automation News. 

Congrats and good luck!

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