Photo: Sidecar
After its recent $500 million investment in Lyft, General Motors Co. is trying another bet in the ride-hailing segment by acquiring the technology and most of the assets of the San Francisco-based Sidecar Technologies Inc.
While Co-founder and CEO Sunil Paul is not joining GM, 20 other ex-Sidecar employees will, including co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Jahan Khanna.
It is not yet known how much the giant American carmaker paid for the ride-hailing pioneer, but according to some rumors, it was less than the $39 million that Sidecar raised before closing its gates because it couldn’t compete anymore with Uber and Lyft.
The San Francisco-based company introduced the concept of peer-to-peer car-sharing in 2012, allowing anyone eligible to offer rides to passengers who asked for it via a smartphone app. At the time, it had barely any competition, as Uber was only offering rides between users of its mobile app and licensed limousine drivers. A year after Lyft entered the market, Uber launched its own ride-sharing service, UberX.
Apparently, this was the moment when Sidecar lost its advantage and began to struggle even more. In early 2015, the company shifted from transporting passengers to goods, but it all came to an end in December when the two co-founders, Sunil Paul and Jahan Khanna, announced that Sidecar would cease all its operations on the last day of 2015.
Buying the ride-hailing company is only a small step for GM’s big plans of introducing its own set of transportation services. Called Maven, the project will allow owners of GM cars to give rides to other passengers who are commuting in the same direction, as Bloomberg reports.
General Motors already filed to trademark the Maven name in November 2015, and the application described “Application software for connecting vehicles drivers and passenger and for coordinating transportation services; software for use in planning, monitoring and controlling urban transportation.”
It is not yet known how much the giant American carmaker paid for the ride-hailing pioneer, but according to some rumors, it was less than the $39 million that Sidecar raised before closing its gates because it couldn’t compete anymore with Uber and Lyft.
The San Francisco-based company introduced the concept of peer-to-peer car-sharing in 2012, allowing anyone eligible to offer rides to passengers who asked for it via a smartphone app. At the time, it had barely any competition, as Uber was only offering rides between users of its mobile app and licensed limousine drivers. A year after Lyft entered the market, Uber launched its own ride-sharing service, UberX.
Apparently, this was the moment when Sidecar lost its advantage and began to struggle even more. In early 2015, the company shifted from transporting passengers to goods, but it all came to an end in December when the two co-founders, Sunil Paul and Jahan Khanna, announced that Sidecar would cease all its operations on the last day of 2015.
Buying the ride-hailing company is only a small step for GM’s big plans of introducing its own set of transportation services. Called Maven, the project will allow owners of GM cars to give rides to other passengers who are commuting in the same direction, as Bloomberg reports.
General Motors already filed to trademark the Maven name in November 2015, and the application described “Application software for connecting vehicles drivers and passenger and for coordinating transportation services; software for use in planning, monitoring and controlling urban transportation.”
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