Tag: micromobility
Bird shuts down Circ operations in Middle East, scraps as many as 10,000 scooters
Bird has shut down scooter sharing in several cities in the Middle East, an operation that was managed by Circ, the micromobility startup it acquired in January. About 100 Circ employees have been laid off and as many as 10,000 Circ scooters have been sent to a third-party UAE-based company…
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BlaBlaCar partners with scooter startup Voi to launch new BlaBla Ride app
Long-distance ridesharing startup BlaBlaCar announced that it is expanding to scooter sharing. But the company isn’t going to operate its own fleet of scooters. Instead, BlaBlaCar is partnering with Voi, a European e-scooter service that has raised $136 million over multiple rounds. Voi operates in dozens of European cities, including…
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Why micromobility may emerge from the pandemic stronger than before
Since its inception, shared micromobility services have been in a precarious position — one supported by millions of dollars in venture capital. But the COVID-19 pandemic has brought even more turmoil upon an industry that has long struggled with unit economics. It has led to mass layoffs, operation shutdowns across…
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Tier brings integrated helmets to electric scooters
European mobility operator Tier has become the first major electric scooter company to integrate helmets into vehicles. The foldable helmets fit inside a box attached to the scooter below the handlebars. This month, Tier plans to deploy 200 scooters equipped with helmets in Paris and Berlin. Over the summer, Tier…
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As Uber (reportedly) squeezes Lime, scooter startups run low on juice
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. In December of 2019, this column wrote an entry detailing Uber’s micro-mobility efforts. Just six months ago — a mere two quarters — Uber’s Jump team was on the record…
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The Station: Via hits $2.25B valuation, letters from readers, layoffs in a time of COVID-19
Hi, and welcome back to The Station, a weekly newsletter dedicated to all the ways people and packages travel from Point A to Point B. I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. If this is your first time, hello; I’m glad you’re with us. I have started…
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