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Sunday, April 10, 2016

BMW just jumped to the U. S. car-sharing biz, by using YC alum RideCell

BMW just launched a fresh car-sharing service called ReachNow that may enable Seattle residents to gain access to 400 cars they can pick up and fall off pretty much wherever they will like, as long as that’s not around the outskirts of town. At some point, the idea is to be able to expand into cities across the country.

BMW’s isn’t a revolutionary concept now. Daimler has a related service called Car2Go that’s for sale in New York, Austin, Minneapolis, Vancouver and also Portland, Oregon. Audi also launched any car-sharing service in San francisco bay area and Miami earlier called Audi at Residence (though it’s currently restricted to residents of one high end condominium complex in each and every city).

BMW itself is operating car-sharing services inside 10 European cities, where Daimler can be making a big press. Not only are these kinds of services better for towns, but it looks like they could produce more revenue for your car companies than marketing cars, too.

What’s perhaps most interesting concerning this new ReachNow initiative will be how BMW is getting it ready to go: through a partnership together with RideCell, a San Francisco-based business whose software serves as some sort of high-tech traffic controller.

The business - formed in Altlanta ga by Georgia Tech grads who moved to San francisco bay area for Y Combinator inside 2011 - describes itself because the operating system of quite a few car-sharing, ride-sharing, fixed-route and also dynamic transit services.

It wasn’t always like that. Originally called InstantCab, next Summon, the company was originally conceived being a ride-share service à l . a . Uber. But as time passed plus it grew vastly out-funded, the business began looking to autonomous fleets. A lot more specifically, the team made a decision to tackle the thorny problem of how companies can manage them, from knowing where each car is found, to which ride could have a low battery, to the vehicles that must be washed or are ruined.

None of RideCell’s consumers are overseeing autonomous fleets as of this time. These include UC Berkeley, USC, 3M as well as the Santa Clara Valley Travel Authority, which is using RideCell to make certain its shuttles aren’t working half empty.

But RideCell will probably be ready when they are usually, says CEO and co-founder Aarjav Trivedi.

“On-demand will be here and autonomous is on its way, ” he says. “So we’re working together with the first and helping our clients plan the second. ”

Without a doubt, for now, RideCell’s new partnership together with BMW will largely allow BMW to work its fleet of car-share autos - including 3 Collection sedans, Mini Coopers and its particular electric i3 models - better. For example, if a driver hops in the car with a lower battery, RideCell might prompt BMW to offer the driver a discount if she or he is willing to work with a charging station as their particular final destination. (As that stands, the drives will surely cost 41 cents a minute to get a promotional period, then go on to 49 cents.)

BMW likes RideCell’s tech a great deal, in fact, it’s getting its money where the mouth is. When RideCell this kind of week closed on $11. 7 thousand in Series A money, it was BMW my partner and i Ventures, which has dedicated to the company previously, in which led the round. Some other participants included earlier backer Khosla Projects; Gokul Rajaram, who’s something engineering lead at Rectangular; and Flutter co-founder (and today Nest product manager) Mehul Nariyawala.

Entirely, RideCell has raised $17 thousand.

By the way, those customers interested in registering for ReachNow need only check their driver’s license, then verify their identity through a picture of their face from the ReachNow app. BMW claims the approval process will take two minutes or a smaller amount.

Update: A couple of viewers have noted that BMW has tried car-sharing inside the U. S. previously, beneath the brand DriveNow. The constrained initiative, launched in San francisco bay area in 2012 (the simply city where it operated), was shuttered after efforts to do business with the city on any parking solution failed.

Techsourcenetwork