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Juno, the New York company that promised to treat drivers well, is looking for a buyer.
The document, which was reviewed by Quartz, describes Juno as the third player in the snowmobile market in New York, with 14 million trips made. in 2018. It is said that Juno had a run rate of $ 270 million in sales and about $ 40 million in commissions on these sales in January, although that does not specify the rate period of $ 39 million. ;execution.
Crain had already reported that Juno was losing $ 1 million a day and had to be sold at a nominal price, citing a person familiar with the case.
It's unclear what a buyer would gain from Juno if it were not his list of runners and drivers, many of whom also use competing apps such as Uber and Lyft.
Juno did not respond to requests for comments.
Juno claims to have been hurt by a law aimed at increasing driver salaries adopted by New York City last December and enforced by the local taxi authority on Feb. 1. The compensation rules put in place by the taxi board are based on a so-called use rate and require taxi companies to pay drivers at least $ 17.22 at the hour after expenses. Juno and Lyft sued the city for violating pay rules and the underlying use formula on Jan. 30.
Juno CEO Ronen Ben-David said in an affidavit filed on March 12 before the New York State Supreme Court that Juno had "incurred a significant increase in costs" to comply with the city's rules. compensation, but the number of pbadengers and the average hourly wage had decreased. He said ridership was down 30% in February from January, while drivers' average hourly earnings were down 17% from the previous month.
In a separate affidavit also filed on March 12, Lyft's General Manager for New York and New Jersey, Ann Ferracane, stated that Lyft had increased fares to comply with the new rates of pay and had since registered a "significant decrease" in the number of pbadengers requesting a trip. walks on the market. Ferracane had previously estimated that complying with taxi rules would cost Lyft another $ 2.3 to $ 2.5 million a week, depending on how they were implemented.
At least one company benefits from the new remuneration rules. Via, the smallest strike company in the city to which the rules apply, indicates that weekly completed trips have increased by 15% since 1 February. Via mainly offers shared routes, unlike its competitors, and has largely been unaffected by city rules, it already paid over $ 17.22 an hour to its drivers.
Uber refused to comment.
Juno was founded by Talmon Marco, an Israeli-American entrepreneur known for creating copies of popular Internet companies and returning them for profit. Its biggest success so far is Viber, a Skype-like messaging and calling app sold to Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten for $ 900 million in February 2014.
Juno was sold to competitor Gett in April 2017 for about $ 200 million. Gett, an Israeli company, preceded Juno in New York, but struggled to gain recognition for Juno's rapid success. Following the acquisition, Gett transferred its operations to New York under the Juno brand but continued to operate under the name of Gett in its other markets – Israel, Russia and the United Kingdom. She raised $ 80 million in venture capital funds as part of a transaction led by Volkswagen in June 2018, for a valuation of about $ 1.4 billion.
Bloomberg announced last summer that Gett was exploring a Juno sale and was pulling out of the US market. While he is looking for a buyer for Juno, Gett is also evaluating an initial public offering in 2019, the Israeli business daily Globes reported on March 6. Gett wants to be "operationally profitable" by October, CEO Dave Waiser said in an internal memo. it improves in terms of revenue and EBITDA from one year to the next. "
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