Category: Mobility Companies

Careem has acquired Commut, the bus-shuttle service app

Careem has acquired Commut, the Hyderabad-based mass transportation app.

As the region’s only tech unicorn, we are always looking to invest in new technologies and high-calibre people to help solve complex local problems. And mass transportation is one of the biggest issues facing cities in the Greater Middle East.

Improving the quality and availability of mass transportation will help to create affordable transport options that can be a catalyst for moving cities forward, therefore we were interested in Commut.

Founded by six IIIT Hyderabad graduates, the tech-driven bus shuttle service that has been operating in Hyderabad since November 2015. To date, they’ve made over 750,000 trips within more than 100 existing routes and are the third-largest transportation app in India.

Backed by UK-Based Shell-Foundation and 50K Ventures, Commut served over 70,000 customers and onboarded 400 driver-partners. Now that Commut has joined Careem, their local operations – including its customers a..

Lyft Continues Rollout of Scooters with Launch in Santa Monica

Today, we’re excited to introduce Lyft Scooters in Santa Monica, our second market following the launch in Denver earlier this month. Lyft was founded in San Francisco over six years ago, and Santa Monica is our first market in California where we’re operating scooters (and soon bikes), so we’re thrilled to bring this solution to… Continue reading Lyft Continues Rollout of Scooters with Launch in Santa Monica

Lyft Concierge Now Offers More Ease and Control for Your Organizations’ Passengers

Have you ever needed to arrange a ride for your customers, employees, or patients, but didn’t know exactly when they would need it? For example, for a patient who has to get home after a doctor’s appointment, or a business traveler dealing with baggage claim delays. Introducing flexible rides from Lyft Concierge, which enable organizations… Continue reading Lyft Concierge Now Offers More Ease and Control for Your Organizations’ Passengers

1 Billion Rides. 1 Billion Connections.

Every single day, millions of people connect in Lyft rides across the country helping to demonstrate that people from all backgrounds, neighborhoods, and walks of life can come together — even if just for a short trip. We started Lyft six years ago with a mission to improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation,… Continue reading 1 Billion Rides. 1 Billion Connections.

Delivering a World-Class Driver Experience with Two New Lyft Leaders

We’re excited to welcome Cal Lankton and Geoffrey Bain to Lyft as Vice President of Infrastructure Operations and Senior Director of Retail Operations, respectively. Cal and Geoffrey will work closely with Karim Bousta, who was recently brought on as Vice President of Driver Experience Operations. Together, this group will develop and execute Lyft’s long-term vision… Continue reading Delivering a World-Class Driver Experience with Two New Lyft Leaders

A message from the new CEO of comma.ai

A message from the new CEO of comma.ai Earlier this week, George Hotz, founder and former CEO of comma.ai, became the Head of Research Team and promoted me, Riccardo Biasini, from VP of Quality to CEO. Before joining comma, I received my master’s degree in automotive engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2010. I… Continue reading A message from the new CEO of comma.ai

Careem Captainahs receive first of 100 cars from Alwaleed…

Alwaleed Philanthropies has delivered the first cars of the 100 pledged to Careem Captainahs as part of its efforts to support and empower Saudi women to work.

The project aims to develop and invest in women’s talents and to enable them to gain meaningful employment and contribute to the development of society and the economy. One of the targets is to increase female participation in the labour force 22 percent to 30 percent.

Careem’s Captainahs began working on the platform on June 24, with more than 2,000 women having registered their interest to become a Captainah for Careem. The target for Careem is to have 20,000 Captainahs on the platform by 2020.

Chaired by HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Alwaleed Philanthropies has supported and spent more than four billion dollars on social welfare in the 40 years it has been operating. With over 1,000 projects initiated in 164 countries the charity has reached 533 million beneficiaries around the world, regardless of g..

Lyft Commits to Full Carbon Neutrality and 100% Renewable Energy

Earlier this year we announced our Green Cities Initiative, a new business unit dedicating significant resources to tackling climate change. As Lyft continues to grow, we have an increasing responsibility to commit additional resources towards our values in order to maximize the positive impact of the Lyft platform. Our first step was to create a… Continue reading Lyft Commits to Full Carbon Neutrality and 100% Renewable Energy

An oral history of Careem’s launch

One of the things Careem aims to do is to inspire other tech start-ups in the region. So, we thought it might be nice to show that while Careem is now a large tech company, its origins were humble and in the very early days surprisingly low-tech. In their own words, the co-founders of Careem…

Magnus: After almost losing my life, I was looking for something to do that was meaningful and I bumped into Mudassir, an ex-colleague – we decided to create something meaningful and big together. We looked at healthcare and education and then the topic of transportation came up after it was mentioned as a problem area by some ex-colleagues at McKinsey. As a corporate client, it was a big pain to move around in the region – everything from having booked a car to having found a car, paying the guy, every part of the journey was challenging.

Mudassir: There was a problem with corporate transport and McKinsey was using a group of different providers in different markets and the reliability was low…

Careem now has one million Captains

Captains are the reason Careem works, and a major part of why Careem was started in the first place. Four years ago, we announced our target to have one million Captains on our platform by the end of 2018. Today we achieved that target one-quarter early.

When Careem was launched, one of the original motivations behind it was to do something that was big and meaningful. Now, six years later, one million people have joined and become Captains for Careem, gaining meaningful employment across the greater MENA region. There were a lot of people in places like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt who were not employed, or were under-employed, but now they have become productive members of society.

We’ve also launched in Palestine because we saw that there were a lot of lives there that could be improved, then in Iraq and most recently, in Sudan. We’re building a service that can improve the lives of people wherever it goes by giving them an income-generating opportunity as well as mobility.

W..