Transit tech company Via, which provides on-demand shuttle services and transit technology solutions, has secured an additional $110 million in funding. This brings the company’s total funding to around $1 billion at a valuation of $3.5 billion, similar to its previous funding round in November 2021. The current funding round was led by 83North, with the participation of existing and new investors, among them – Exor, Pitango, Janus Henderson, CF Private Equity, Planven, Riverpark Ventures and ION Crossover Partners. Via’s technology assists public transportation agencies, cities, and school districts in optimizing fixed bus routes, designing bike lanes, planning paratransit and school bus services, and incorporating private ride-sharing into a city’s overall transportation network. The company has already established a presence in more than 600 communities across 35 countries.
Via intends to use the new funds to either develop new products in-house or through acquisitions, with potential plans including expanding its street map software to include traffic light and speed bump planning, adding parking and curb management software, managing fleets of electric vehicles and their charging stations, integrating micromobility planning, and incorporating autonomous vehicles.
Presently, Via is working with autonomous vehicle companies Motional and May Mobility to deploy autonomous ride-sharing shuttles in Las Vegas, Nevada and Grand Rapids, Minnesota, respectively.
Via was founded in 2012, by Daniel Ramot and Oren Shuval. In the past it operated transportation services in New York and today it concentrates, as mentioned, on the development of software systems for transportation services. In Israel, Via was involved until recently in the service of Bubble, which was closed. The company employs 1,100 people, half of them in Israel, and its revenues are more than 200 million dollars – an amount that reflects an increase of more than 100% since the previous funding round.
“Public transportation operators in the world, and especially in the United States, are in a sharp transition to the technological world,” says Ramot in an interview with Israeli financial news service Calcalist. “A decade ago we couldn’t talk to them about technology and today everyone knows that they have to be there. They realized that dynamic change is needed every day and it’s not possible with slow change. All the companies in the field are rushing to update more efficient transportation systems – and this causes a growing demand.”
Regarding the state of the high-tech industry in Israel and the world, including the waves of layoffs at the various companies, Ramot says: “We have not laid off employees and we are one of the only companies in Israel that is still hiring at a high rate. There are several things happening in our market and in the coming years we know that we will have a huge market. We enjoy huge demand – also Thanks to Biden’s infrastructure law, which poured huge sums into public transportation.”
Leave a Reply Cancel reply