Where $9 billion of ride-hailing funding has gone so far in 2016
Believe it or not but the world’s biggest oil nation alongside giant car companies are funding startups that may change forever the way we get around. Here’s why.
Ride-sharing apps have been attracting big money since the start of the year, with Saudia Arabia’s $3.5 billion investment Thursday into Uber Technologies Inc. only the most recent example of the industry’s $9 billion’s haul.
Some are passive investments in the future of transportation. Others have a strategic rationale, ranging from a desire to sell more cars to cab drivers to upending the traditional rental-car market. In several cases, automakers are joining startups in ventures that could end car ownership as we know it today. In that future, we get to Point A from Point B summoning fleets of self-driving cars by smartphone.
Put into context: The amount flowing to ride-sharing apps so far in 2016 is almost twice the amount invested in another hot startup segment — food-related technology startups including delivery services — in all of 2015.
Here’s a list of the most notable ride-sharing investments in the past six months, ranked by deal size, and what they are all about.
Read more….
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/where-9-billion-of-ride-sharing-funding-has-gone-so-far-in-2016?cmpid=BBD060216_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=
- More investment in transport than in any other category.