Public transport app company Moovit today announced that it has closed $50 million in Series C funding led by Nokia Growth Partners, and with the participation of BMW i Ventures, Keolis, Bernard Arnault Group, and Vaizra Investments. The financing will be used to further expand services in key markets and to continue to grow the company's participatory community of 15 million local transport riders. Existing investors BRM Group, Gemini Partners and Sequoia Capital also participated.
The crowdsourcing app gathers real time information from passengers as well as other sources to recommend the fastest public transport routes at any given time - doing for public transport users what Waze does for car drivers.
The round will enable Moovit, which has doubled its worldwide community in the past six months, to expand more rapidly.
The Nes Tziona based company, which was founded in 2011 by CEO Nir Erez, VP Operations Roy Bick, and Yaron Evron, recently moved its headquarters to San Francisco. The app was first launched in Israel in 2012 and at the start of 2013 in other cities worldwide including in the US, France, Holland, Spain, Italy and Brazil. The company raised $28 million in its Series B funding in December 2013 and Moovit has raised $81.5 milliion, after the latest financing round.
Erez said, "Since our last round, Moovit has seen tremendous growth in our initial markets. Now it's time to bring community-powered local transit to people around the globe."
Moovit's community model allows it to scale at incredible rates by providing the most accurate directions to people who rely on local transportation to navigate their daily lives. Riders also contribute to Moovit's transit layer and engage in live transit prediction-mapping, which helps other transit riders travel faster and more comfortably.
Sequoia partner Alfred Lin said, "We've long been believers in Moovit's mission to democratize local transit. But we've still been stunned by the passion of its community and how quickly it's transforming the way the world travels across more than 500 cities."
Nokia Growth Partners managing partner Bo Ilsoe said, "Urbanization, age demographics and traffic congestion is driving up the usage of public transportation worldwide. Using real-time data and building a seamless experience for the commuter, Moovit is solving a daily problem for millions of people. We are thrilled to back this talented team and help them make Moovit become the de-facto standard for local transit."
Moovit is available for free in the Apple iTunes App Store, Google Play App Store, Windows Phone App Marketplace, or at moovitapp.com
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 14, 2015
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