BMW i Ventures has announced a strategic investment in RideCell, the provider of software to power mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), including car-sharing, ride sharing, fixed-route, and dynamic transit services.
RideCell has pioneered a ground breaking mobility software platform that enables multi-city mobility providers, cities, and campuses to launch new mobility services in weeks and scale them to tens of millions of users, with minimal operational expenses.
RideCell’s unique differentiator is “autonomous fleet operationsTM”: technology that automates end-to-end business operations from consumer apps to the day to day fleet management, demand and supply analytics, marketing, CRM, and payments.
“The convergence of transportation trends in cities is of key importance to BMW. RideCell’s technology platform provides agile tools to power services that span the entire mobility spectrum, including but not limited to car sharing; making them an ideal partner for BMW” said Ulrich Quay, Head of BMW i Ventures.
“We are very excited to have BMW as a strategic partner to collaborate on building the future of mobility” said Aarjav Trivedi, CEO of RideCell. “Our vision is to build tools that allow our customers to run the world better. Our platform is completely autonomous and our multi-modal offering across fixed route, on-demand and car sharing services in tens of cities provides insightful data giving us a unique perspective on designing cities”
New York-based BMW i Ventures, a corporate venture capital team founded by BMW Group in 2011, provides equity financing to high-potential start-ups and high-growth companies dedicated to shape the future of global mobility. As a strategic investor, i Ventures aims to build strong partnerships with young start-ups with a high potential of making urban mobility smarter, more efficient and more flexible. Collaboration projects intend to create sustainable business value on both sides. Portfolio companies benefit from BMW i Ventures’ long-term experience, strong reach and the broad network of a well-established brand. Through its previous investments in the fields of e-mobility, navigation, parking, car sharing and intermodality, BMW i Ventures has already entered into strategic partnerships with innovative providers such as Zirx, Chargepoint, Life360, Moovit, JustPark, Chargemaster and Zendrive.
