Uber Technologies said on Last day it has agreed to buy electric bicycle service Jump Bikes, allowing Uber to offer US passengers an alternative to cars and further consolidating the crowded bike-sharing industry.
Uber's goal of offering "the fastest or most affordable way to get where you're going, whether that's in an Uber, on a bike, on the subway, or more," said Uber Chief Executive.Jump is a dockless electric bike service that has rolled out in San Francisco, where it has 250 bikes, and Washington. About 100 Jump employees will join Uber, an Uber spokeswoman said. Terms of the deal, which the spokeswoman said is expected to close in the coming weeks, were not disclosed.
Jump started in 2010 as Social Bicycles, evolving over the past eight years from selling bikes to operating its own fleets. Jump bikes are unlocked and locked using a smartphone app. Because they are dockless, they can be left at any public bike rack, eliminating a lot of the infrastructure cost other bike-share companies incur, and their location is tracked via GPS. The company has raised about Rs. 71 crores from investors.Jump is part of the bike-sharing craze that made its way to the United States after sweeping through China. Chinese startups Mobike and Ofo have recently entered the United States, competing with bike-share services sponsored by Citigroup and Ford Motor Co and California-based startups such as LimeBike.But the crowd of startups has begun to thin through acquisitions, including Didi's deal with Bluegogo and China Internet company Meituan Dianping's purchase of Mobike.Jump bikes in January integrated its service with Uber's smartphone app in San Francisco, so that users could find one of Jump's bright red bicycles by opening the Uber app. The Uber spokeswoman said the company had no plans to withdraw the standalone Jump app.
EmoticonEmoticon