WolfsburgVolkswagen-Boss Herbert Diess In particular, the auto industry in general and its own company are harshly challenged and face tremendous challenges. It must now necessarily the entry into the electric age success. As a heavy mortgage, he feels the “great dependence” in battery cell technology from Asian suppliers. This said in the Handelsblatt interview: “Let’s… Continue reading Interview: “It’s not too late yet” – VW boss Diess warns of dependency in the battery cell technology
Tag: Mobility
Getaround car-share service raises $300 million in new funding round
Source: Jill Silvestri
Getaround, the car-share company that lets drivers rent their vehicles to strangers, is gearing up for more growth fueled by a new round of funding.
The San Francisco company has raised $300 million in Series D funding led by the SoftBank Vision Fund. Toyota and company insiders also provided money in the latest financing round. Getaround has raised $400 million in total capital so far.
“We are confident in our product, playbook, and team,” Sam Zaid, Getaround founder and CEO said in a statement. “We look forward to leading the growth of next-generation carsharing.”
Since starting in 2010, Getaround has steadily grown its car-share network to include several thousand vehicles in 66 U.S. cities. In the last year, Getaround has seen a sevenfold Increase in booked hours.
For SoftBank, the investment comes just months after the Japanese company agreed to buy a 20 percent stake in GM's autonomous vehicle subsidiary Cruise Holdings for $2.25 billion. SoftBank also has invested $9.3 billion in Uber, becoming the ride-hailing company's largest investor.
“SoftBank sees carsharing as an accelerating trend that will disrupt car ownership”, said Michael Ronen, managing partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers.
Car-sharing, which allows members to rent a vehicle for a few hours or several days, has been around for more than 15 years. Zipcar may be the best-known car-share company with more than 12,000 vehicles available for rent. In recent years the industry has picked up momentum with Daimler subsidiary Car2Go and GM subsidiary Maven both steadily growing their networks.
Questions? Comments? BehindTheWheel@cnbc.com.
Carsharing Leader Getaround Raises $300M in Series D
Getaround, a San Francisco, CA-based carsharing platform that allows users to rent and drive cars shared by people in their city, raised $300m in Series D financing. The round was led by SoftBank, with participation from Toyota Motor Corporation, and inside investors. The company intends to use the funds to continue growing and expanding into… Continue reading Carsharing Leader Getaround Raises $300M in Series D
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Car-sharing startup Getaround raises $300 mln in funding led by SoftBank
(Reuters) – Car-sharing startup Getaround Inc has raised about $300 million in the latest funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, the San Francisco-based firm said on Tuesday. Toyota Motor Corp and some other existing investors were also part of the Series D funding round, Getaround said. The company, founded in 2013, has been… Continue reading Car-sharing startup Getaround raises $300 mln in funding led by SoftBank
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TomTom Reaches Mapping Milestone: 1.5 Billion Updates in a Single Month
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Why the Careem app is more than just a tool for ride hailing
You know the Careem app. And in the last six years at Careem we have built a large ride-hailing business, but what we’ve really built is a large Internet business.
Careem is a tech company first and foremost, and in the process of building the ride-hailing business we have created the ecosystem to help others build their own regional Internet business on our platform.
While launching Careem we developed and implemented a lot of the underlying infrastructure that was needed to run a consumer Internet business in multiple countries in the region, then harmonised them on a single platform. That wasn’t easy. But now we can do many more things than just mobility, and we are one of the few companies that have breadth of population and support in a large tech platform.
Our focus was mobility, all forms of things that can move people, but now we’re expanding to other aspects for which our app can provide a stable and far-reaching base.
Building an Internet business in the region is difficu..