[ad_1]
MEXICO CITY (Expansion) –
Lyft goes shopping.
Uber's main competitor in the United States announced this week the acquisition of Motivate, the largest shared bike operator in North America.
"Together, Lyft and Motivate, we are accelerating our collaboration in cities and delivering better experiences to our passengers and users," said John Zimmer, co-founder and president of Lyft.
Motivate operates a large number of bicycle sharing services in the United States, including Citi Bike, available in New York; Ford GoBike, San Francisco; Divvy, which operates in Chicago, plus five other systems.
Lee: Chinese companies will rent bicycles in Mexico
Several companies have started to emerge in this new industry, that of shared bicycles. In Mexico, for example, platforms such as Mobike and Vbike were launched this year.
However, Uber also turned to this sector, which in China alone reached $ 1,700 million last year.
In early April, Uber announced the acquisition of Jump. The purchase for $ 100 million has given access to 120,000 bikes available in 40 cities in six countries, and primarily to the technology of the company.
"The purchase will bring several modes of transport in the Uber app. So you can choose the fastest or the most accessible to get you where you are going, whether it's a Uber, a bicycle, the subway or whatever, "said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber.
But not only have these giants decided to speed up their presence in this industry.Another interested party is the Japanese company Softbank which, since 2017, has shown that it wants to inject capital into companies in this sector.
The telecommunications company that holds a fund of 100,000 million dollars to invest in companies had talks at the end of 2017 with the Chinese company of Ofo for a $ 1 billion turn
NEW MEANS OF TRANSPORT
But not only shared bicycle companies have tipped the funds and large companies
Other transportation service platforms, including "scooters" have also begun to attract attention.
One of the most important companies of this type is Bird, who is about to launch an investment round that positions him as a $ 2 billion start-up, just two weeks after raising $ 150 million the $ 1,000 million.
You may be interested in: VBike starts using shared bicycles without a station
Lyft and Uber are looking to expand their operations to become full service transport operators or from Your app decides which mobility option is best for you.
As Khosrowshahi recently stated in an interview with The Verge: "The change for me is that Uber passes from a global carpool giant to a mobility hub from point A to point B
Source link
