Bird acquires Spin from Tier, Delivery Hero looks to sell foodpanda and EU regulation looms

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐

MOIA is launching a licensing model. Offered to public transit authorities (PTA) and operators (PTO), the licensing deal includes everything from design & consulting via operating models & use of software to the use of the Moia brand, with no need to commit to VWs vehicles. For more. This is essentially a SaaS white-labeled solution, competing against managed solutions offered by on-demand companies such as Via, Padam, ioki etc.

Flix shares (some) Q1/23 results: €860M revenue (+54% YoY), 36 million passengers (+53%) and EBITDA profit of €26M. Flix operates in 41 countries and will soon expand to Chile and India.

Chalo mulls international expansion. The company, offering ticketing and tracking solutions, has recently completed expansion to the Philippines and Thailand. Chalo says it has over 15,000 buses on its network, and also offers micromobility solutions via acquired-company Vogo.

Treepz’s CEO celebrates 4 years in this video. The Treepz story on how they started, carried through the pandemic, raised money, expanded internationally, did M&As, changed their name, evolved their business model, reached profitability, developed car-sharing and its future plans - in 6 minutes.

InDrive expands in Zimbabwe. InDrive adds EVs in New Delhi. Spare new on-demand service in Kansas. Zeelo and Digisure partner to facilitate Zeelo’s US expansion. Roger French rides West Cheshire DRT, by Padam.

Sharing/renting 🚗🛴

Tesla builds in-car software to make car rental easier with Hertz’s fleet.

Turo and Hopper, online travel booking platform for GenZ and millennial travellers, partner to allow booking of Turo’s vehicles via the Hopper app. Turo partners with Toronto’s Pearson Airport. DriveYou expands in Ireland.

Bird - Spin - Tier 🛴🇺🇸

Bird acquires Spin from Tier for $19M. This deal should benefit both sides - Tier now sheds its US arm making it more attractive for mergers with the likes of Bolt and Voi; and Bird adds economics of scale while hoping for a new momentum to the company. Spin has 60,000 vehicles to join Bird’s 100,000, and Spin has delivered roughly $45M in net revenue in the 12 months ending in June 30, 2023, bringing the combones Bird + Spin net revenues to $265M.

The deal is not without trouble for Bird, who is struggling for cash and has just completed a major restructuring, pulling out of unprofitable cities, laying off employees and replacing top management.

The market has not reacted favourably toward Bird, sending its stock down from circa $1.2-$1.3 to $1.13 end of trade Friday the 22nd. Bird, failing to reach a market cap of $15M for 30 consecutive days, saw its stock delisted from NYSE. Bird is appealing and for now will continue trading over-the-counter (what?). It makes sense that Bird acquired Spin to try and get above the $15M cap - that might very well happen in the near future.

More Micromobility 🚲🛴

The 2nd phase of the London scooter trail goes live, with Voi, Dott and Lime. The 1st phase has been piloted for the past two years, and this phase will see increased safety measures, such as max speed of 20 km/h, scooter lights, GPS parking & restricted areas, and higher standard for fire and battery safety management. Dott ends London e-bike service due to ‘high fees and varied regulations’. The company still continues to operate scooters in the city.

Brussels publishes new micromobility tender. The three year contract will be decided this December and includes 7,00 vehicles, from scooters and bikes to e-mopeds and cargo bikes. Link to the call. Zaragoza publishes new bicycle tender. The 10 year contract at a value of €76M calls for 2,500 pedal-assist bicycles with/batteries and 276 stations.

Delivery 🍽🧺

Delivery Hero in talks on partial sale of foodpanda, its Asian business, to potential buyer Grab for an estimated €1 billion. The territories for sale include Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand - foodpanda’s Southeast Asia region. Deal’s value is still under negotiations, but estimated to be around €1 billion. For now foodpanda is in the midst of (its 3rd) round of layoffs designed to improve efficiency - and obviously make the business more attractive for buyers. Delivery Hero confirmed the news, Grab declined to comment.

What would happen to foodpanda’s markets in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Bangladesh and Pakistan is unknown. In Vietnam, Baemin Vietnam, the joint venture between Delivery Hero and Woowa Brothers, has begun scaling down operations in its home market and laying off staff. Baemin is expected to be completely shut down, holding only 12% of the local market with no roadmap to profitability.

JOKR raised $50M series-D and is now valued at $800M post-money. This is a downround from a $1.3bn validation in February’s series-C, but this downturn is more market-indicative than says something about JOKR itself. In the past year JOKR left all markets to concentrate solely on Brazil, and the funds are designed to enhance product offer and solidify the company’s position in the country.

DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats can sue NYC over a law capping how much they can charge restaurants for delivering meals. The city enforced capping commissions at 15% for food orders and 5% for advertising and other services, which is being contested by companies as being unconstitutional and is "economic protectionism” to the benefit of local ‘mom and pop’ stores. To be continued in courts near NYC.

UberEats will start accepting food stamps and healthcare benefit payments for grocery delivery in 2024. While other digital (e.g. Instacart) and traditional (e.g. Walmart) grocery value chain players accept food stamps, Uber is the first major player to accept healthcare benefit payments.

Zapp and Newfoundland partner on personal health rapid delivery. Deliveroo launches two new Hop dark stores with Waitrose and Morrisons. Glovo partners with Quickmart in Kenya in the 12 cities Glovo operates. Clevon autonomous delivery-bots delivered 1,500 packages for DHL. 4 min video. UberEats to launch AI chatbot, powered by Google, to help find deals. Instacart debuted on Nasdaq on September 19th listing at $30 - growing quickly to $42 - going back to ±$30 by end of trade Friday.

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Waabi and Uber Freight partner on autonomous trucking, with Waabi’s test fleet to begin commercial pilots with shippers on the Uber Freight network. Wabbi’s goal is to offer carriers Drive-as-a-service ‘slots’ on Uber Freight marketplace. Uber’s previous partnership, with Waymo One, ended when Waymo decided to cancel its autonomous truck division. This partnership sees a higher integration between the companies.

Cruise is working on a winter version for its autonomous vehicles, to be ready in 2025. Current vehicles are built for sunny states (California, Texas, Arizona etc.), and future expansion would require autonomous systems that are more fitting for cold weather. Vogt, Cruise’s CEO, charts a future without human drivers. Meanwhile in Austin, Cruise vehicles create a traffic jam. To video and more videos.

California governor vetoes Bill 316, requiring humans in autonomous big rigs. The bill saw overwhelming support with state legislators, but the governor determined that it is “unnecessary for the regulation and oversight of heavy-duty autonomous vehicle technology”.

Lawmakers are asking the federal regulator to collect more safety data on autonomous vehicle operations, pointing to the latest safety concerns in San Francisco.

Waymo begins driver-less testing in Los Angeles. Port Authority testing self-driving shuttle vans at Newark Airport. First Bus and Fusion begin autonomous bus pilot in Oxfordshire, UK. In Beijing, the city is allowing autonomous operators - primarily Baidu and Pony.ai - to begin driverless robotaxi operations. Aurrigo launches its shuttle in Prague. Fernride, teleoperated autonomous freight trucks focusing on logistics yards, adds $19M to its series A, bringing total series-A to $50M.

A CityLab by Bloomberg double opinion articles (cool design!) on why robotaxis make cities safer / shouldn't have a place. Proponents advocate safety provided by flawless computers and the low costs associated with robotaxis, while driver pay is eliminated from the cost-equation; opponents highlight the fact that technology is still not 100% ready today, that human safety is far better than described to be by proponents and that cars come at the expense of public transport, with robotaxis to put the final axe on future public transport.

My take: robotaxis are here to stay. Be it 3, 5 or 10 years - it doesn't really matter. Never in history has man been able to take back technological advancement, and this will definitely not be the 1st time for that. Therefore, we should focus on how we want our public transport to work, and licence robotaxi numbers the same way we do for taxis and ride-hailing.

Flying cars 🚁

Joby Aviation to build a manufacturing facility in Ohio, where the Wright brothers pioneered human flight. EHang 30 minute test flight over Jerusalem.

Gig economy 💰

Uber warns that EU legislation to categorise digital platform workers as employees will increase prices by 40% and “cease operations in hundreds of the 3,000 cities across the EU that Uber serves today”. The EU’s “Platform Work Directive” is still in talks and should be decided on in the next few weeks.

How gig-drivers in Pakistan keep safe.

In other news 📰

Greater Manchester is launching its public-owned buses. 50 Electric buses are hitting the road now, with the full rollout expected to complete by January 2025. Apart from London, public transport in the UK is mostly privatised; Manchester is working toward a local government directed public transport.

Lyft to pay $10M fine to SEC over disclosure failures in a 2019 pre-IPO transaction. Somebody, we don’t know who, sold $424M worth of private shares just before the IPO, and Lyft failed to report.

Friedel’s MaaS thoughts.

First private US passenger rail line to link Miami and Orlando at a speed of 125 mph / 200 kph. Will Americans adopt this solution?

Photo from: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/22/foodpanda-confirms-talks-to-sell-part-of-its-asia-business-layoffs.html