Cabify meets challenge, Uber meets bus, CMA meets Stagecoach, delivery platform meeting money and a children song

My favourite sentence this week is “The lidar on the Waymo goes pulse, pulse, pulse…”. Then, in order of (personal) importance: TaaS & ride-hailing with Uber, FlixMobility, SWVL and Cabify; Public Markets with Turo and Arrival; UK Buses with National Express; gig-economy worker global update; Autonomous with Waymo (but don’t mention Tesla); Micromobilty; Delivery booming with money and more with the likes of Otonomo, Boeing and the Isle of Man. Let’s start.?

TaaS & ride-hailing ?? ??

Uber Shuttle for Business is launching in Brazil. The service focuses on the daily commute, offering services through partner charter operators. The Brazilian market is crowded, with companies such as FlixBus, Buser and BusUp all active in the commute and intercity bus space.?

SWVL continues international expansion across 115 cities and 18 countries. Remember that SWVL SPACed with Queen Gambit back in July 2021; we’re all waiting to see the company list on NASDAQ. FlixMobility is changing its company structure, probably preparing for an IPO, and is refreshing its management, bringing on board an experienced highly regarded CFO. That actually screams IPO. We’re also all waiting for VIA to publish its financials, to learn of DRT financials.

Milwaukee is launching a DRT pilot service designed at connecting people to jobs. A VIA operated 15-vehicle service is geared to help employers located on the outskirts of the city. ioki operation in Ahrensburg is extended for an additional three years.?

Cabify. I’ve got a warm place in my heart for the first (and only?) profit-making car booking app, but tough times are ahead. In Madrid, vehicles require licence; Cibeles Comfort Cars, a subsidiary of Auro Group, holds such ±1,000 licences and up to now has been working exclusively with Cabify, per legal agreement between the two companies. But now Auro is breaking the deal (this was anticipated), causing Canify to lose ±20-33% (depends who you ask) of its fleet and moving to work with Uber & Bolt. Auro had enough of the Cibeles’s exclusivity clause; and the group has also developed its own app, that today works with ±1,000 Auro (not Cibeles) licences. There is a legal battle going on right now, adding fire to the competition between Cabify, Uber and Bolt. For more: Vive La Plata, ABC, Europe Press, Cinco Dias.?

In other Cabify news, the company is growing ride-hailing (B2C) in Colombia and expanding into corporate commute and daily transport (B2B) with vans and buses and to last mile retail delivery (B2B2C).

Public Markets ????

Turo has filed to go public. Some numbers: raised more than $450 in equity and debt; 2021 was a great year, growing 300% year-on-year, fueled by a boom in domestic tourism post 2020 pandemic ‘don’t leave your home!’ year and by Hertz’s brief bankruptcy; profits worsened but the adjusted-earning are profitable. The company is facing increasing competition and regulatory headaches at airports (which are a third of bookings) and will use the money to expand and pay debt. For more.?

Arrival stock is continuing its decline. The company saw its stock reach ±$25 per share when it debuted on the NASDAQ in March 2021 but is now at ±$3, experiencing a drop of 70% over the past three months. Why? Because the company announced that it underestimated its capital requirements and scaled back its growth trajectory. This adds to the overall sentiment in the NASDAQ lately (ranging from really bad to horrible) and to the oh-so-many EV companies that are priced more than most established auto manufacturers (looking at you Rivian and Lucid) - which is not reasonable. In other news, see the Arrival-Uber alpha prototype car in this video.?

UK Buses ?? ??

The UK Competition and Markets Authority is looking into the National Express acquisition of Stagecoach, stopping the latter from selling off its subsidiaries. Stagecoach was supposed to sell its stake in Scottish Citylink and the marketing, retail and customer service activities of the Megabus and Falcon to ComfortDelGro, but that will have to wait. National Express and Stagecoach still anticipate the deal to be completed by the end of 2022.?

Some BSIPS are “a bit rubbish”, but most are brilliant. If you haven’t heard of Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIP), know that they are the strategic outlook of Local Transportation Authorities (LTA) in the UK on the future of transportation in their respective areas. Submitted to the DfT, these plans (and especially the ones who get funding from the government) will be the future of how the public moves around in the UK.?

Gig Economy ??????????♂???

Three stories - from Europe, US and Kenya - signal that the ambiguity concerning employee classification on digital platforms is nearing its end. This probably will take some more years, but the clock is ticking.?

In December, the European Commission set five criteria to determine whether platform (gig economy) workers are self-employed or employees. If two of the criteria are met, the company is an employer. The list can be seen here. Now, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) ran an analysis of Uber, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Glovo, Deliveroo and Cuideo, a Spanish digital labour platform, and found they all should categorise workers as employees. Well, ETUC clearly has an interest here, and these rules are subject to interpretation, so we’ll have to wait for the European Commission’s relevant bodies to decide.?

Fairwork, an Australian consultancy, found that Kenyan Gig economy workers suffer from income uncertainty, lack of pension or other social benefits and earn, after deducting fuel, vehicle maintenance and mobile data costs, below the minimum wage. The consultancy looked at Glovo, Uber, Bolt and a number of local platforms, and concluded that Glovo was the only company paying above the minimum wage. For more.?

And in California, DoorDash reaches a deal with delivery drivers over unpaid wages, caused by misclassification as independent contractors rather than employees.?

Autonomous ??

No more self-driving. The industry has decided on a name change: from “Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets” to “Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association”. The association includes all the big names, from Waymo through Cruise and Lyft to Volvo and Ford (and more) - but not Tesla. And the name change has to do with Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ feature, and the industry’s attempt to distance itself from Tesla’s tech, which, as you know, is in no way self drive. But it’s Elon, so he gets away with it. This change has been led by Waymo, and not everybody is happy with it, as it leaves the term ‘self-drive’ solely to Tesla.?

“Driverless does not mean humanless”. A short piece by the FT on the future of operating autonomous vehicles. Imagry was granted a licence by the Israeli Ministry of Transportation to drive on public roads. So far the company piloted its tech in the US and Germany only. WV and Bosch team on hands-free-driving software. The goal is to introduce Level 2 and Level 3 systems for hands-free driving in urban environments and on freeways. Pennsylvania in a legislation process to allow companies developing self-driving vehicles to test them on state roads without emergency drivers. Waymo writes on how it ensures safety - hardware, software and operations combined.?

Micromobility ????

London’s TfL is working with UCL (University College London) to develop universal sound for e-scooters, allowing pedestrians to better anticipate ‘incoming’ scooters.? Tier extends integration of its app to Google Maps in most of the company’s Italian cities and in Budapest, also extending the offer to e-bikes. Also Tier expands scooter fleet in Bahrain and plans of adding bikes as well. Lime and Neuron Mobility to support e-scooter trials in four Australian cities

Deliveries ????

Super interesting - q-commerce unit economics and how to potentially improve margins. Distributing private labels is definitely a good way to increase margins.?

Gopuff hires banks for a nearing IPO. So far Gopuff, founded in 2015 and backed by SoftBank, had $3.4bn in funding, made 6 acquisitions, and is valued at ±$15bn.?

Gorillas to plans to acquire French Frichti. The latter was founded in late 2015 and raised a total of $56M (according to crunchbase, the article states more). It is a ‘full stack’ food delivery - designs its own recipes, cooks ready-to-eat meals in its own kitchens, stores food in its own micro-fulfillment centres and handles deliveries with its own delivery service. Glovo acquires Ukranian Zakaz.ua.?

Indian Swiggy raises $700M at a $10.7bn valuation. Swiggy’s market cap is now bigger than its competitor Zomato, which went public last year. Swiggy will use the investment to expand its Instamart q-delivery service. Deliverect raised €130M and is now a $1.4bn unicorn. The company automates restaurants’ online order flow through a single point, taking in data from different delivery companies and integrating it to the kitchen as one. Australian 10-min delivery MILKRUN raises $75M in series A.

In the UK, Deliveroo and HumanForest partner on sustainable deliveries, allowing workers to use subscriptions for e-bikes. In Hong-Kong, Deliveroo and FoodPanda (DeliveryHero) are being investigated by the competition watchdog. Allegedly, the companies breached the competition law by imposing restrictions on their partner restaurants, such as exclusivity demands and price listing lower than on menu.?

In other news ??

Otonomo and Audi partner on vehicle data. Now Audi can offer services such as pay-as-you-drive,insurance and vehicle status. Boeing invests $450M in autonomous electric air taxi startup Wisk, a company also owned by Kitty Hawk. The rise and rise of e-cargo bikes. Used for delivery at an increasing rate, players such as Pedal Me, Zedify and Cargodale (and others) are clear pandemic winners.?

The Future of cars, by eight industry leaders (a long read). Some takeaways: EV are coming, but slowly (VW expects half of its new production to be electric not before 2030); requires infrastructure that doesn’t fully exist in developed markets, not to mention emerging markets; and for it to be effective in terms of climate change, there needs to be a energy-producing transition from coal to renewable energy. Software, such as infotainment and operating systems, is playing a bigger part, which is not the forte of car manufacturers, so partnerships are forming with companies such as Google. ‘Autonomous’ would roll out in stages on different roads, and people are the most dangerous element, because… they trust computers too much.?

The Isle of Man Office of Fair Trade finds that DRT minibuses did not break competition rules. The DRT scheme was introduced in 2018 by the government, and the taxi organisation UNITE claimed that the government was in unfair competition with the private sector. The Office found that there was ‘limited competition’. UNITE is disputing the ruling, calling for the council of ministers, the highest level decision making body, to further explore the matter.?

Look at Europe’s top 50 Clean Mobility startups for 2022. Very interesting.?

Have a great week!