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Waterloo’s RideCo, the on-demand transit technology company making public transportation more convenient to ride while remaining cost effective to operate, has raised a $20 million Series A financing round led by Palo Alto’s Eclipse Ventures.
Launched in 2015 as North America’s first on-demand transit service, RideCo’s mission is to make transit convenient to ride and cost effective to operate.
RideCo partners with public transportation agencies, municipalities, and local fleet operators to design and operate on-demand transit services that alleviate travel pain points for riders – such as long travel times, lengthy walking distances, and low service frequency – as well as for agencies – such as high costs per ride, low productivity, and challenges attracting net new riders to transit systems.
RideCo’s innovative software has powered more than 60 services throughout cities worldwide and has leading market share among the largest cities in both the United States and Canada.
“We built RideCo because our own family members were struggling to use transit to get to work, and we realized that this is an unnecessary challenge millions of people around the world struggle with daily,” said Prem Gururajan, Co-Founder and CEO of RideCo.
“We asked ourselves: how can we simplify transit by making it more responsive to riders, dynamically routed, and ultimately, reduce the journey times for our loved ones. The RideCo team is solving an incredibly difficult mobility and engineering problem, and our implementations with some of North America’s largest transit agencies indicate we’re succeeding.”
“As the impact of the pandemic continues to reshape how we move about cities, this new round of funding from Eclipse will help us continue to build and scale a dynamic transit software platform that makes transit more convenient, cost effective, and sustainable.”
RideCo will leverage its $20 million investment to further accelerate its growth and innovation in product engineering and customer support to deliver mobility success stories in more communities.
The startup employs just under 70 staff and plans to double its workforce in the coming year.