Car manufacturers invest in Transit, the app that helps people get around without a car – TechCrunch

Transit, A company that has created a mobile app designed to help city-dwellers live without a car has raised $ 17.5 million from two manufacturers in a B-series.

The tour was led by Alliance Ventures, RenaultNissan-Mitsubishi's joint investment division. InMotion Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover's venture capital fund, also joined the round, as well as two former investors, Accel and Real Ventures.

The investment of Renault Nissan-Mitsubishi and Jaguar Land Rover would have seemed paradoxical five years ago. But this is 2018. It's the year of scooter wars and micro-mobility; It is also a period of transition for automakers looking to diversify their traditional car construction and sales business.

Founded in 2012, Transit began as an app to help people check out bus and train departure times. It has become a platform for mobile applications that allows multimodal transportation, integrating public transit, voice broadcasting, bike sharing and scooter sharing. The mobile application, which provides real-time data from transit agencies with crowdsourcing of users, gives users notifications of their commute. The app then tracks the vehicle's position in real time and tells the user when he has to leave to stop, when he has to disembark. and sends adjusted ETAs. Transit is now used by transit agencies, including MBTA Boston, MDOT MTA Baltimore, VTA Silicon Valley, PSTA Tampa Bay and STM Montreal.

The company wants to be agnostic about transit and transit. She is therefore a big supporter of open APIs. Montreal, where the company is based, is a model of what Transit wants to be everywhere. In Montreal, users can use the app to share their car, bike, order an Uber or use public transit, explained the director of operations, Jake Sion.

Transit, which operates in 175 cities worldwide, will use capital injection to resize its operations and improve the platform by integrating various services and payment methods on the application.

"This investment, which will reinforce Transit's efforts to make mobility seamless and accessible in cities, is part of the Alliance's 2022 strategy to become a leader in mobility services for motorists and their families." a provider of vehicles for public transit and car sharing, "said in a statement Francois Dossa, vice president of business and open innovation Global Alliance.