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Intel Leads Moovit's $50 Million Round As Transit App Morphs Into Mobility Platform

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Moovit

Moovit, the world’s most downloaded transit app, raised $50 million in a new funding round led by Intel Capital that will help the Israeli startup’s push to become a comprehensive, one-stop resource for urban trip planning.

Along with the Intel unit, previous Moovit investors, including Sequoia Capital, BMW iVentures, NGP and Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures participated in the Series D round. Intel Senior Vice President Amnon Shashua, who’s also CEO of its Mobileye unit, is joining Moovit’s board, suggesting the startup's trove of anonymized travel and movement data from its users will complement other data Intel is amassing.

While Mobileye sensors collect location information from cars, “we're aggregating a lot of statistical data about other means of transportation – public transit vehicles, buses, trains, subways, light rails, side by side with walking patterns, cycling patterns,” Moovit CEO Nir Erez told Forbes. Both together “create the whole urban movement picture,” he said, without elaborating on specific projects.

Along with the chance to work with Intel and Mobileye, the new funds will be used to improve the free Moovit app, now used by 120 million people globally, and the company’s Smart Transit Suite. Erez wouldn’t say how much revenue Moovit generates from the platform that it started marketing to cities last year. It’s underpinned by the large amount of GPS and trip data from Moovit’s large user base, which Erez estimates total more than a billion data points daily.

Ronen Goldman for Forbes

Taking inspiration from Alphabet Inc.’s Waze, the crowd-sourced navigation app for drivers, Moovit started up in 2012 to provide real-time bus and train guidance for Tel Aviv-area commuters, assisted by user-editors who note mapping and scheduling discrepancies. The app now provides trip-planning guidance in 2,000 cities in 80 different countries, and Moovit aims to have a billion users by 2021.

(For more, see Moovit Is On A Mission To Speed Up The Bus Ride For Commuters Worldwide from the December 26, 2017, issue of Forbes.)

“With significant investments in automated driving, mobility management platforms and smart infrastructure, Intel is at the forefront of a fundamental transformation of urban mobility,” Shashua said in a statement. “We’re working with some of the most innovative transit companies, municipalities and transit authorities to build critical foundational technologies for this transformation.”

“Moovit is one of the world’s leaders in public transit data and analytics,” he said.

With the latest funding, Moovit has now raised $133 million. Investors BRM, Gemini, Vaizra, Vintage and Hanaco also participated in the $50 million round.

Along with detailed bus and train information, it also connects users to ride-hailing services, as well as car- and bike-share programs.

“We see Moovit as the aggregated platform for all of these services,” Erez said.

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