UBER - Uber Technologies, Inc.
35.22 +0.09 (0.26%)
Pre-Market: 6:38AM EST
| Previous Close | 34.68 |
| Open | 34.97 |
| Bid | 35.22 x 900 |
| Ask | 35.18 x 2200 |
| Day's Range | 34.65 - 35.25 |
| 52 Week Range | 25.58 - 47.08 |
| Volume | 17,251,231 |
| Avg. Volume | 29,615,767 |
| Market Cap | 59.925B |
| Beta (5Y Monthly) | N/A |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | N/A |
| EPS (TTM) | -2.95 |
| Earnings Date | Feb. 05, 2020 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | N/A |
| 1y Target Est | 44.00 |
- TechCrunch
Uber sells food delivery business in India to Zomato
Uber said on Tuesday it has sold its food delivery business, Uber Eats, in India to local rival Zomato as the American ride-hailing giant races to shed lossmaking operations to become profitable by next year. As part of the deal, Uber would own 9.99% of Zomato and its Eats users would become part of the Indian company, the two loss-making firms said. The deal valued Uber Eats' India business between $160 million and $200 million*, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
- Reuters
Uber tests feature allowing some California drivers to set fares: WSJ
Uber drivers ferrying passengers from airports in Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Sacramento can charge up to five times the fare set by the company starting Tuesday morning, the report added. Uber did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Earlier in January, Uber informed its California customers it would switch to providing estimates as opposed to fixed prices for its rides.
- Bloomberg
Uber Sells India Food Business to Rival Zomato to Cut Losses
(Bloomberg) -- Uber Technologies Inc. will sell Uber Eats in India to local rival Zomato in a $172 million deal, according to a person familiar with the transaction, underscoring the ride-hailing giant’s effort to cut back on loss-making operations.Uber agreed to offload the business in return for 9.99% of the Indian startup, maintaining a foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing internet arenas, the companies said in a statement. As part of the deal, the U.S. company will shutter operations but direct all restaurants, delivery companies and diners to Zomato. Neither company offered up financial details but the person said the value of the Zomato shares Uber gets is estimated at about $172 million -- the Indian startup was last valued at $2.2 billion.The deal marks yet another leg in a wave of consolidation sweeping the food delivery sector. Uber, which is trading well below its IPO price, seeks to hive off loss-making operations to achieve its goal of being profitable on an EBITDA basis by 2021. While it will continue to vie with Ola -- also backed by SoftBank Group Corp. -- in ride-hailing, exiting the food business can help staunch bleeding in one of the most competitive markets in the region. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has impressed upon the companies within his massive portfolio the need to curtail excess and focus on the bottom line.“The competition in this space is going to continue to be intense, and the food delivery category is still very small compared to the overall food service market in India,” Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal said in a blogpost. “Through this deal, Uber Eats India users now become Zomato users. I want to assure Uber Eats India users that their user experience won’t be compromised in any way – if at all, the scale gives us higher density to make our deliveries faster.”Read more: Red-Hot Indian Online Food Arena Delivers its Second UnicornWhat Bloomberg Intelligence SaysUber’s sale of its Eats business in India makes sense, and echoes a similar step in South Korea as it cuts ties with unprofitable markets. Pulling out of India could kick up a 500 basis-point headwind to the Eats segment’s sales growth yet deliver a 10 percentage-point boost to its Ebitda margin, which remains substantially lower than those of peers such as Just Eat and Grubhub.\- Mandeep Singh, analystClick here for the research.Uber started its food-delivery business in India in 2017 with much fanfare and a huge marketing budget. The San Francisco-based company has since poured resources into the operations to lure users with bargain food deals delivered to the doorstep, but it’s pitted against competitors with powerful investors.Naspers-backed Swiggy and Zomato, backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, now lead India’s food-delivery sector, which like elsewhere is showing signs of consolidation. Bangalore-based ANI Technologies Pvt, which owns the Ola ride-hailing brand, acquired the Indian unit of Foodpanda in December 2017 and also faces an uphill struggle against the two established players.Uber, whose shares are down 22% from their 2019 IPO price, said it will continue to expand its core Indian business after unloading Eats. Employees that lose their jobs as a result of the deal can reapply for other roles within the company, the person said.“India remains an exceptionally important market to Uber and we will continue to invest in growing our local rides business,” Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said in the statement.(Updates with deal’s value and analysts’s comment from the first paragraph)\--With assistance from Saritha Rai.To contact the reporter on this story: Edwin Chan in Hong Kong at echan273@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Uber sells Indian Eats business to Zomato in move to cut losses
Uber has sold its loss-making online food-ordering business in India to local rival Zomato in exchange for a 9.99% stake in the startup backed by China's Ant Financial [ANTFIN.UL]. Since launching in India in 2017, Uber Eats has struggled to gain market share and is a distant third to Tencent Holdings backed Swiggy and Zomato. Uber Eats' India operations contributed just 3% of gross bookings for the business globally, while accounting for a quarter of its adjusted operating losses, Uber said.
- Business Wire
Zomato Acquires Uber’s Food Delivery Business in India
Zomato, one of the largest food apps in India, announced today that it has acquired Uber’s food delivery business in India in an all-stock transaction, which gives Uber 9.99% ownership in Zomato.
- Bloomberg
Masayoshi Son Is No Angel. He Might Want to Give It a Try
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The reputation of Masayoshi Son, the world’s most prolific unicorn breeder, came crashing down last year with the collapse of WeWork. An 80% writedown on The We Co., and a 970 billion yen ($8.8 billion) loss at the SoftBank Vision Fund delivered some cold hard truths about his vulnerability.You might think that Son would have learned his lesson. Instead, he’s doubling down, with plans to start a $108 billion fund that's even bigger than the first. To win back investors’ confidence, though, the chairman of SoftBank Group Corp. might want to consider a different tack: becoming an angel.That’s not just a euphemism. Angel investing would take Son back to basics. Compared with the SoftBank Vision Fund, a SoftBank Angel Fund should be:Much smaller: $50 billion max. Write lighter checks: Nothing larger than $10 million.(1) Invest earlier: No later than Series A.This concept of smaller, lighter, earlier ought to become a mantra. But it takes guts — Son would have to rein in the swagger that comes with writing fat paychecks. Not that his habit of throwing billions at Southeast Asian startups isn’t bold; but when that business already has a product, traction, brand awareness and market leadership, then you can’t exactly call it brave — especially when it’s other people’s money.Angel investors take a punt on new companies at the earliest stages, often before a product has been fully developed or any revenue acquired. In the past, they were generally rich individuals who knew the founders and were parting with a relatively modest amount of cash to give young entrepreneurs a leg up. The average angel and seed deal size in the fourth quarter was $1.8 million, according to Crunchbase News. When Son entered the venture capital scene in 2016 with a $97 billion checkbook, this old-school model of investing — based on the careful assessment of a startup’s revenue, return and growth — was thrown out the window. Son’s Vision Fund tends to invest much later, in rounds such as Series E, F or even H. Son also wielded his giant fund to pick winners, and by extension nominate losers, in ways that defied logic. He offered WeWork founder Adam Neumann just 12 minutes to make his pitch, and then told him that his company wasn’t being crazy enough, New York Magazine reported last year. Neumann should aim to make WeWork ten times bigger than originally planned, the founder of the co-working space operator was told.WeWork was by no means an exception. Son muscled his way into a host of startups, often forcing founders to choose between playing for Team SoftBank or getting defeated by it. Consider online lending startup Social Finance Inc. Co-founder Mike Cagney told Bloomberg Businessweek that Son gave him a choice: Take SoftBank’s money, or watch it go to a competitor. (He took the deal.) In 2019 alone, SoftBank was an investor in four of the world’s five largest funding rounds, according to a report by CB Insights. The result was not only implosions like WeWork, but overvalued unicorns like Uber Technologies Inc. and Slack Technologies Inc. whose stocks have fallen since their IPOs. It also made many founders and investors wary of Son and his approach, which may be making it harder for him to cut deals.Masayoshi Son isn’t timid, to be sure. His reputation is built upon decades of courageous bets that netted him, his investors, and his founders billions of dollars. The most famous being Jack Ma and a little e-commerce company that became Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. But the past few years suggest he’s forgotten those roots as a supporter of scrappy young upstarts.Most recently, he’s reported to be offering up to $40 billion to help Indonesia build its new capital city. He’s already opted to join a steering committee that will oversee construction of the new metropolis on Borneo Island — 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) away from current capital Jakarta — alongside former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. While there’s something noble about offering advice to a developing nation as it grapples with congestion and flooding, it’s hard not to feel that Son is perhaps straying a bit far from his core mission. After all, he has his investors and staff to look after. Shifting to angel investing wouldn’t be entirely altruistic. This segment is the hottest sector of funding right now, according to data compiled by Crunchbase News. Whereas late-stage investing — the type the SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in — has declined over the past year, angel and early-stage investing is on the rise.Son prides himself on being a visionary, with a 100-year time horizon. That makes for good headlines and big numbers. But if he wants to secure his legacy, there’s nothing more honorable than being an angel.(1) Even $10 million is huge by some standards.To contact the author of this story: Tim Culpan at tculpan1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Rachel Rosenthal at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Private Equity's Mountain of Dry Powder Is a Danger Sign
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Investors keep flocking to private equity in Asia even though returns are declining. They should take heed: Payouts are likely to get worse from here, rather than better.The hunt for yield in a low-interest world has spurred institutional investors from China Investment Corp. to Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund to join the rush into the alternative asset class. Private equity firms founded by former veterans of Warburg Pincus and KKR & Co. are seeking to raise at least $4.5 billion for new funds investing in China, Cathy Chan of Bloomberg News reported Thursday, in the latest sign of the region’s burgeoning appetite for nonpublic investments.New York-based KKR, meanwhile, is targeting more than $12.5 billion for its fourth Asian fund, which would surpass the record $10.6 billion raised by China’s Hillhouse Capital Group in 2018.(2) At the end of June, private equity firms in Asia were sitting on a record $361 billion of unspent capital, according to London-based market research firm Preqin.The returns haven’t lived up to the hype. Funds focused on Asia generated an internal rate of return of 12.8% last year, down from 15.5% in 2018, according to Preqin. That’s below what investors could have made outside the region: North American funds chalked up an IRR of 16.4% in 2019 while those centered on Europe returned 18%.Even brand-name private equity shops have sputtered. Hillhouse’s $10.6 billion fund saw its IRR slip by 5.16 percentage points between September 2018 and the third quarter of 2019. Over the same period, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 3.3%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. KKR’s two existing Asian mega-funds have had varying success.It’s getting harder for private equity firms to realize returns by selling companies on stock markets as the world wakes up to the reality that not all hot technology startups will be IPO winners. That follows disappointing debuts for high-profile names such as Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., along with the collapse of WeWork’s U.S. share offering last year.Much of the private-equity action in Asia has focused on China, which has also had its share of setbacks. OneConnect Financial Technology Co., a unit of Ping An Insurance (Group) Co., cut the size of its U.S. IPO by almost half last month, while Oyo Hotels is firing thousands of staff in China and India. Like WeWork and Uber, both companies are backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.The U.S.-China trade war has also had a damping effect, with some private equity-invested companies finding themselves embroiled in the tensions. Facial recognition startup Megvii Technology Ltd. delayed its IPO in Hong Kong after it was included in a U.S. blacklist cutting off its access to key American technology. Bytedance Inc., owner of the wildly popular video app TikTok, is now a subject of a U.S. national security review, and is weighing the sale of a majority stake in the unit.All that considered, it isn’t surprising that the value of private-equity backed trade sales dropped 14% to $28.5 billion last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while share sales by private equity owners slumped 27% to $6.4 billion, declining for a third year to the lowest since 2013.While the U.S.-China phase one trade deal signed last week offers some hope of an improvement in conditions, money is still likely to keep piling up in Asian private equity. For one thing, there aren’t many better alternatives. Institutional investors need to diversify: They can’t keep all their funds in U.S. equities, even if these have been going gangbusters for years.But that doesn't mean individuals need to follow suit. Private equity investments are more risky because they are illiquid and take years to pay off. Smart investors should see the ever-growing piles of dry powder as a sign of danger rather than success.\--With assistance from Dani Yang and Irene Huang. (Corrects to remove non-annualized MSCI index comparisons in the second chart, deletes reference to KKR fund underperforming the market.)(1) The Hillhouse fund is the largest devoted specificallly to Asian investing. Chinese state-backed, or policy, funds such as a $29 billion vehicle created in October to invest in the semiconductor industry are larger.To contact the author of this story: Nisha Gopalan at ngopalan3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew Brooker at mbrooker1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Nisha Gopalan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and banking. She previously worked for the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones as an editor and a reporter.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
China’s Phoenix Tree Flat in Debut as U.S. Listings Restart
(Bloomberg) -- Phoenix Tree Holdings Ltd., the largest of four companies making their U.S. trading debuts Friday, ended its opening session unchanged after shrinking its offering and pricing its shares below a targeted range.The Chinese e-commerce company’s American depositary shares closed Friday at $13.50, the same price as in its initial public offering on Thursday. Phoenix Tree, which operates the co-living platform Danke Apartment, sold 9.6 million shares to raise about $130 million Thursday after marketing 10.6 million for $14.50 to $16.50.Phoenix Tree’s debut and initial public offerings by three other companies -- two of them based in China -- delivered mixed results as U.S. listings restarted after a holiday break.The listings followed a year in which investors were whipsawed by a landmark first half followed by a second half marred by disappointments, especially the demise of WeWork’s listing plans.Uber Technologies Inc.’s $8.1 billion listing in May was among the 95 U.S. IPOs raising $32.4 billion through June 30 of 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compared with 87 listings raising $18.9 billion after July 1. Uber’s 23% share drop since its IPO has added to investor jitters.Phoenix Tree’s offering was led by Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DNK, the company has a market value of $2.48 billion.Velocity, LizhiVelocity Financial LLC, a mortgage lender based in Westlake Village, California, sold 7.25 million shares on Thursday for $13 each -- below the marketed range -- to raise about $94 million. The shares rose as much as 9.6% Friday and closed up 3.9% to $13.51, giving the company a market value of $257 million.Shares of biotechnology company I-Mab priced its shares at $14 each, within its target range of $12 to $15, to raise about $104 million on Thursday. After initially rising as much as 13%, the shares sunk almost 11% to $12.50 on Friday, giving the company a value of $721 million.Lizhi Inc., a platform for podcasts and other audio content, fared the best of the four. On Thursday it raised $45 million, pricing its 4.1 million shares at the bottom of its marketed range. Those shares rose as much as 39% Friday and closed up 5.7% to $11.63, valuing the company at $532 million.Lizhi Chief Financial Officer Catherine Chen said in an interview that the company was aiming for long-term growth and wasn’t focused on short-term market considerations.“The specific timing is not that important,” she said.The only other listing in the U.S. this year has been Bogota Financial Corp., which raised about $57 million in its IPO Wednesday. Its shares have climbed 16% from its offer price.(Updates with closing share prices starting in second paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Hytha in San Francisco at mhytha@bloomberg.net;Julia Fioretti in Hong Kong at jfioretti4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Liana Baker at lbaker75@bloomberg.net, ;Lianting Tu at ltu4@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Jeran WittensteinFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Airbnb Revamps Corporate Governance, Tying Bonuses to Safety
(Bloomberg) -- Airbnb Inc. is laying the groundwork for a public market debut later this year, announcing a new corporate governance strategy that values safety, sustainability, diversity and accountability.The home-share startup has said it will track guest safety incidents, verify all seven million listings by December, measure its global carbon footprint and enhance employee diversity. To achieve its ambitions, Airbnb is creating a new Stakeholder Committee on the board and tying staff bonuses to safety metrics, according to a statement Friday.In addition, Airbnb has promised to be transparent, reporting progress at an upcoming Stakeholder Day that can be attended by guests, hosts, communities, employees and investors.“Building an enduringly successful business goes hand-in-hand with making a positive contribution to society,” the company said. “Increasingly, this is what citizens, consumers, employees, communities and policy makers desire -- even demand.”Airbnb has been on the defensive over safety since a mass shooting in October at a party house in Orinda, about 20 miles east of San Francisco, where five people died. Local media started to highlight the number of shootings at Airbnb rentals, and family of those slain questioned how the platform vets its guests. In December, the Wall Street Journal published an investigation showing how Airbnb employees who pushed for stricter safety measures, like requiring users to supply a government ID, were overruled by company executives who feared this could deter new guests or hosts.The company is also entangled in battles with cities around the country over regulations and has been accused of discrimination by hosts. With a $31 billion private valuation, Airbnb is poised to be one of the most high-profile market listings this year. Getting ahead of some of the concerns could help appease investors who may be wary of the unfriendly reception other tech titans, like Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc. and Slack Technologies Inc. received last year.The new Stakeholder Committee will be led by Belinda Johnson, who is due to step down as chief operating officer and join the board in March. The company will also award $100 million in grants to support local projects that promote cultural heritage, economic vitality and sustainable communities and demonstrate clear local impact, according to the announcement.These new initiatives will be demanding on the company as it prepares to go public; verifying every listing by December means staff will have to work through tens of thousands of listings a day. But Airbnb says it’s just getting started.“When we first sat down to begin this work, we knew we were undertaking a difficult and serious task. We allowed ourselves to think about problems and opportunities that will take multiple teams working over multiple years to solve,” the company said. “We are nowhere near finished.”To contact the reporter on this story: Olivia Carville in New York at ocarville1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Molly Schuetz at mschuetz9@bloomberg.net, Robin AjelloFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance
Wingstop is on fire just like its buffalo wings; CEO aims for 6,000 restaurants globally
Yahoo Finance speaks exclusively with Wingstop CEO Charlie Morrison fresh off the company's first-ever investor day.
- TechCrunch
Bolt raises €50M in venture debt from the EU to expand its ride-hailing business
Bolt, the billion-dollar startup out of Estonia that's building a ride-hailing, scooter and food delivery business across Europe and Africa, has picked up a tranche of funding in its bid to take on Uber and the rest in the world of on-demand transportation. The company has picked up €50 million (about $56 million) from the European Investment Bank to continue developing its technology and safety features, as well as to expand newer areas of its business, such as food delivery and personal transport like e-scooters. The timing of the last equity round, and the company's ambitious growth plans, could well mean it will be raising more equity funding again soon.
- Zacks
The Best Of CES 2020 (Revised)
It's hard to pick favorites from the broad range of things from the large number of companies showcased at CES.
- Bloomberg
Didi Rival Is Said to Seek Up to $300 Million in Pre-IPO Round
(Bloomberg) -- Chinese ride-hailing startup Dida Chuxing is seeking to raise as much as $300 million and is considering an initial public offering, escalating competition with larger rival Didi Chuxing, according to people familiar with the matter.IDG Capital-backed Dida is raising between $250 million to $300 million in a pre-IPO round that it pitched to a wide range of investors, the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. Dida has mulled floating on exchanges in mainland China or Hong Kong, but prefers the latter, one person said. A Dida spokeswoman declined to comment.Ride-hailing operators are grappling with dwindling investor sentiment after Uber Technologies Inc. went public last May only to see its shares tumble. Dida, which infuses social elements into its car and taxi-hailing operation, has been trying to raise capital since around the middle of last year, the people said. It’s unclear what valuation the Chinese company is targeting.In May 2015, Dida received a $100 million funding from China Renaissance Capital Investment, according to Dida’s website. In March 2017, Chinese private equity fund Nio Capital led a new round in Dida. Hillhouse Capital, IDG, JD.com and Nio Capital participated in the company’s last funding round, according to a slide deck created in August but that’s been recently circulated to investors and viewed by Bloomberg News.Dida says it became profitable last April, earning 29 million yuan ($4.2 million) in the second quarter of 2019, according to the investor presentation slides. The company generated 151 million yuan in revenue for 2018, and expects that to have jumped to 643 million yuan last year, the same presentation shows.Beijing-based Dida is a distant second to Didi in China’s ride-hailing arena but its popularity grew after two female passengers were murdered while using the services of competitor Didi. Dida operates a network of 1.2 million taxi drivers and its daily orders has surpassed 3.65 million, according to the deck.To contact the reporters on this story: Zheping Huang in Hong Kong at zhuang245@bloomberg.net;Dong Cao in Beijing at dcao59@bloomberg.net;Manuel Baigorri in Hong Kong at mbaigorri@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Colum Murphy, Peter ElstromFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Uber Technologies (UBER) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
Uber Technologies (UBER) closed the most recent trading day at $35.01, moving +0.49% from the previous trading session.
- Bloomberg
Toyota Makes a New $394 Million Bet on Flying Taxis
(Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. is making a $394 million investment in Joby Aviation, one of the handful of companies with the seemingly implausible goal of making electric air taxis that shuttle people over gridlocked highways and city streets.Toyota is the lead investor in Joby’s $590 million Series C funding, alongside Baillie Gifford and Global Oryx and prior backers Intel Capital, Capricorn Investment Group, JetBlue Technology Ventures, SPARX Group and its own investment arm, Toyota AI Ventures. The deal, for now, makes the Santa Cruz, California-based Joby the best-funded “eVTOL” (electric vertical take-off and landing) startup in a booming category that must overcome significant regulatory hurdles and concerns about passenger safety and noise, bringing the total money it has raised to $720 million.“Air transportation has been a long-term goal for Toyota, and while we continue our work in the automobile business, this agreement sets our sights to the sky,” said Toyota President and Chief Executive Officer Akio Toyoda. “As we take up the challenge of air transportation together with Joby, an innovator in the emerging eVTOL space, we tap the potential to revolutionize future transportation and life.”Over the past year, the 82-year Japanese automaker has deepened its interests in futuristic transportation technologies. Last year it backed Recogni Inc., a Silicon Valley maker of autonomous vehicle systems, and May Mobility, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based operator of self-driving shuttle buses. At CES earlier this month, Toyota announced its intention to build a 175-acre community, or “Woven City”, at the base of Mount Fuji to serve as a showcase for self-driving cars and other innovations in transportation.Joby is an emerging player in a field of air-taxi companies that includes Airbus SE; South Korean automaker Hyundai, which recently announced plans to design and produce an air taxi with Uber Technologies Inc.; and Kitty Hawk, the brainchild of Alphabet co-founder Larry Page, which is developing an air taxi in conjunction with Boeing Co. Volocopter, a startup in Germany, is backed by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., the biggest investor in Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler AG and owner of Swedish manufacturer Volvo and British automaker Lotus.In addition to announcing the funding, Joby released an image of its prototype aircraft. The vehicle, which looks like an oversized toy drone, sports six electric propellers and is capable of flying 150 miles on a single charge, at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, the company said. It’s designed to carry four passengers and a pilot, an approach that differs from that of rivals such as Kitty Hawk, whose two-seat “Cora” vehicle is intended to fly autonomously, without an onboard pilot.Joby says it will manufacture prototypes at a facility in Marina, California, near Monterey, but plans to tap Toyota’s famous manufacturing prowess to build “highly reliable complex hardware at increased scale,” said Paul Sciarra, Joby’s executive chairman and a co-founder of Pinterest.In December, Joby and Uber announced a separate partnership to jointly introduce Joby air taxis in at least two cities, with customers booking and paying for flights via the Uber app.The most pressing challenge for Joby, which now has around 400 employees, is obtaining certification from the Federal Aviation Authority and other regulatory agencies around the world. Joby says this is a three- to five-year process that it formally began in 2018.Over the past few years, both the FAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have moved to support commercial development of air taxis and released special guidelines to regulate small aircraft, with rules that differ from those governing conventional helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes. Much work remains, said Robin Lineberger, head of the Aerospace & Defense practice at Deloitte, including creating a system to manage municipal airspace in both normal and poor weather conditions and building physical infrastructure such as mini-airports that can support frequent takeoffs, landings and aircraft recharging.“The 2023 to 2025 time frame is fairly straightforward” for small demonstrations, Lineberger said. But he looks to 2035 “as a practical date for having a ubiquitous operational fleet in the thousands—not the hundreds—with a well-established framework for regulatory approval.”Sciarra and Joeben Bevirt, Joby’s founder and CEO, say they’ve spent significant time with Toyoda in Toyota City, Japan, as well as with other Toyota executives at Joby’s headquarters on a windy, 500-acre ranch in the hills north of Santa Cruz. They would not say whether they offered them a ride on the prototype aircraft, but Bevirt said: “They’re a loyal and tenacious company and this has been a dream of the Toyoda family for a very long time.”To contact the author of this story: Brad Stone in San Francisco at bstone12@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Dimitra Kessenides at dkessenides1@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- TechCrunch
Uber kicks off adaptive electric scooter pilot in SF
Uber's JUMP has started its adaptive scooter pilot in partnership with San Francisco Bike Rentals. This is part of Uber's permit with the city of San Francisco, which requires all electric scooter operators to pilot adaptive scooter share. "We’re committed to helping improve access to transportation for everyone in San Francisco and we believe our adaptive scooters will do just that -- especially for people who either don’t need mobility assistance at home, or don’t qualify for home scooter purchase programs, but who still face limited options in public," an Uber spokesperson said.
- Baystreet
Stocks in play: HeyBryan Media Inc.
Announced its partnership with Duuo (by The Co-operators Group Limited), a new digital insurance brand ...
- Bloomberg
Goldman Says It Sold Out of Uber Stake After IPO Lockup Expired
(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has sold off its stake in Uber Technologies Inc. after the ride-hailing startup’s disappointing initial public offering in 2019.Chief Financial Officer Stephen Scherr said on the bank’s earnings call Wednesday that it closed its position in Uber in the fourth quarter last year.Goldman owned about 10 million shares of Uber at the time of the IPO, turning a $5 million wager using the firm’s own money back in 2011 into a major windfall. The bank recognized a gain in the second quarter, but took a hit in the third quarter as Uber’s shares plunged. Like other investors, Goldman Sachs was restricted from selling shares until six months after the offering.Goldman lost out to Morgan Stanley as lead banker on Uber’s IPO, one of the most highly-anticipated in 2019, though it did share some of the work along with Bank of America Corp. But Uber’s shares tumbled immediately after the listing and ended the year down 34% as investors questioned its path to profitability and regulatory challenges and controversies about passenger safety and the rights of drivers weighed on the company’s image.Uber has said it plains to be profitable on an Ebitda basis in 2021 and its shares are up about 18% so far this year.To contact the reporter on this story: Molly Schuetz in New York at mschuetz9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Michael J. MooreFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- TechCrunch
Another women-led venture firm gains momentum, with Uber exec Rachel Holt as co-founder
Last November, Axios reported that New Enterprise Associates partner Dayna Grayson was leaving the storied venture firm after roughly six years to launch her own shop in Washington, D.C., called Construct Capital. Today, we know Grayson has company, no pun intended. Rachel Holt, one of Uber's first employees and until now its head of new mobility, announced this morning that she's joining Grayson as her co-founder.
- Bloomberg
One of Uber’s Most Powerful Women Leaves to Start a VC Fund
(Bloomberg) -- Rachel Holt, one of the first employees at Uber Technologies Inc. who rose to become one of the most powerful women at the company, is leaving to start a venture capital firm.Holt is teaming up with Dayna Grayson, a venture capitalist from New Enterprise Associates, to create the new firm, Construct Capital. Both women announced the moves on Twitter but didn’t offer details such as the target fund size. Neither responded to requests for comment.The new firm increases the representation of women in venture capital, an industry dominated by men who bankroll startups mostly led by men. Just 12% of startup investment firms in the U.S. have women in decision-making roles with the power to write checks, according to a report by industry research firm PitchBook and advocacy group All Raise. Female venture partners are twice as likely to invest in startups with at least one female founder and more than three times as likely to back startups with female chief executive officers, the report noted.Holt joined Uber in 2011 and later managed the North American ride-hailing business. Most recently, she led development of new mobility projects, such as electric bicycle and scooter rentals. Her departure to start a VC firm was reported earlier Tuesday by news site Axios.In a statement, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called Holt’s departure “bittersweet.” Dennis Cinelli, an Uber executive who also did a stint at scooter startup Bird Rides Inc., will take over Holt’s role on an interim basis while Khosrowshahi searches for a replacement, a spokesman said.To contact the reporter on this story: Lizette Chapman in San Francisco at lchapman19@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Anne VanderMeyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
