Uber today announced they have acquired Jump, an electric dockless bike-sharing company, who currently operate 12,000 dockless bikes in 40 cities, across six countries.
“Our ultimate goal is one we share with cities around the world: making it easier to live without owning a personal car”, explained Uber CEO . “Achieving that goal ultimately means improving urban life by reducing congestion, pollution and the need for parking spaces.
“That’s why we’re committed to bringing together multiple modes of transportation within the Uber app—so that you can choose 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.”
Welcome to the family @JumpMobility! One step closer to our vision of bringing together multiple modes of transportation within the Uber app.
— Uber (@Uber) April 9, 2018
Jump’s CEO wrote a Medium post explaining the buy-out:
“When we first began talking to Uber they were going through an extremely difficult time, with negative headlines each week and a massive change in leadership.
“We expected to find a toxic work environment and a broken culture. Instead, everyone we met was smart, passionate, and genuinely wanted to help our team succeed. Through our collaboration, we realized that we shared Uber’s vision of multi-modal mobility and had the same goal of decreasing car ownership. Even more importantly, we could see the shift in the company once Dara was named CEO as he began leading with humility and in a way that we felt reflected our values.
“It soon became clear that with such strong synergies and alignment on mission, JUMP could better accomplish its goals if it were part of Uber.”
There is no word as to when the service will hit Sydney, although we can’t imagine it’ll take too long.
Another bike-sharing company joins the already-crowded market. This one, however, has a battery-boost, and the backing of one of the world’s biggest start-ups.