Movements | November 14th, 2019
Issue #72 - Brought to you by Michal Naka and Adam Feldman. Join thousands of others who receive this analysis and curation of emerging mobility news in their inbox every week — subscribe now.
Investments & Deals
European micromobility startup Voi raises a $85 million Series B round. | Sifted
Travis Kalanick’s latest startup CloudKitchens received a $400 million investment. | WSJ
MaaS Global raises $33 million from BP and Mitsubishi. | VentureBeat
Micromobility
Lyft plans to roll out 2,000 eBikes in Minneapolis next year. Related: 4000 eBikes are coming back to San Francisco over the next 6 months. | BizJournal
RaineOne electric scooter: a 26 pounds scooter with 25 mph range and a top speed of 31 mph, complete with ABS brakes. | Kickstarter
How Bird aims to differentiate itself in the micromobility market. Bird’s Chief Communications Officer said to expect the company to continue to expand globally in 2020 and “continued pushes to selling our own products.” | AdWeek
Micromobility innovation of the week: bike racks with seat covers. | Twitter
Skip starts testing its own S3 hardware in Washington DC. | Skip Scooters
Bird receives a patent for remote control use of on-demand electric vehicle. | Bird Rides Inc.
Interview with Bolt CEO Markus Villig on their scooter business: “Long term we will be upgrading it at cost because it’s an important service that needs to be there and it brings customers into our ecosystem. But it’s not a great standalone business.” | Sifted
New Products & Launches
Shared launched a new helmet detection feature on its rider app that will give users a 20% discount if they are wearing a helmet. | Shared
Users of Transit App can now buy tickets for Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus from right in the app, thanks to a partnership with Token Transit. | Twitter
Uber is expanding its investment in its ad platform for Eats. | TechCrunch
Ridehailing
Last week we shared how Didi is relaunching it’s carpooling service after two murders last year. This week Didi says it will not allow women to use its carpool product after 8PM. | Business Insider
Cities & Policy
In its first bicycle safety report since 1972, the NTSB is recommending all US states require bicyclists to wear a helmet after a recent spike in bicycle deaths on US roads. | NYT
Uber’s policy team looks at how rideshare and transit compliment each other in Seattle. “The simultaneous growth of transit ridership and rideshare use, alongside the continued decline in single-occupant auto commuting, suggest that high-quality transit and rideshare can together provide an attractive alternative to driving alone.” | Uber
The city that cycles with the young, the old, the busy and the dead. | NYT
Santa Monica published their Shared Mobility Pilot Program Summary Report. While the report is worth a read in its entirety, especially if you’re eager to understand how a forward thinking city looks at managing shared mobility, here are some highlights:
2.7m trips from October 2018 to September 2019
Average trip length was 1.3 miles
About half of the shared mobility trips replaced trips that would have happened via car
Jobs
Hiring for an interesting role? Want your posting featured in Movements? Fill out this form and our team will be in touch.