SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BusUp, the #1 corporate bus commuter management solution in the E.U. and LatAm, today announced the close of its Series A financing round to accelerate commercialization of its flexible and shared corporate commuting services in the United States. The new capital will allow BusUp to expand operations in the US and consolidate other existing markets in response to growing interest in employer-provided commuter benefits and mobility services. The $6 million financing round is led by Proeza Ventures, the largest mobility investment firm in Latin America, and supported by leading US transportation venture capital firm Autotech Ventures (investor in Lyft and Volta Charging), and IESE’s Business School venture fund Finaves V, among others.
Thanks to its best-in-class technology, BusUp provides organizations of all sizes with a turnkey solution for creating and managing effective commuter programs, using shared route planning and optimized pickup points and schedules to match employee transportation needs. The success of BusUp’s Shared Commuting Programs in the EU — where clients are seeing greater than 30% in cost savings, has been a turning point for the company, and the main reason for its expansion to the US market.
More than 100 organizations worldwide (such as Accenture, Louis Vuitton, Siemens, Roche, Lilly, Cognizant, Nestlé and DXC Technologies) have relied on BusUp’s capabilities and expertise to accommodate and plan for fluctuations in ridership to meet the anticipated trend of “hybrid workplaces'' — a mix of in-office and remote work environments — as commute patterns continue to change amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. BusUp’s solutions can easily be leveraged to incorporate strict sanitization procedures adapted to regional requirements and a central system for contact tracing.
“Trends show that the return to the office scenario will be dominated by hybrid or flexible work that will inevitably require flexible commuting solutions. One of Bill Gates’ predictions for the post-pandemic world is that ‘the corporate office will be shared,’ and we have already seen this happening in the EU naturally extending into shared commutes as well,” said Rui Stoffel, CEO and co-founder of BusUp. “During the pandemic, we have also seen many mobility companies that are just now pivoting towards the B2B segment or just tapping into shared corporate solutions and, while we see these trends as a validation that our unique B2B approach is the right place to be when talking about commuting, we are also confident that our technology and quality of service has no match in the market and, with the backing of the world’s top tier mobility investors, we are uniquely positioned to extend our leading position into the US.”
In addition to guiding its customers through new workforce transportation needs, BusUp is delivering a highly-effective path to meeting corporate sustainability goals, significantly reducing the carbon footprint of daily commutes up to 72% compared to car commutes. BusUp’s ability to share the service between nearby companies further reduces the environmental impact of each customer’s commuter program.
“One of the most important things that the pandemic has taught us is how much car commuting contributes to pollution and congestion in our cities,” said Enrique M. Zambrano, Principal at Proeza Ventures. “We are convinced that BusUp’s shared shuttle commuting solution offers one of the most sustainable paths forward for changing the world as we know it for generations to come.”
“The fundamental value proposition of not having to drive yourself to work is compelling. Ride sharing leads to clear and significant gains in terms of efficiency and flexibility for commuters, and visionary companies that offer this service to their employees benefit from increased productivity, and higher employee satisfaction and retention,” said Daniel Hoffer, Managing Director at Autotech Ventures. “For these reasons, we believe that BusUp’s shared solution will be a gamechanger for the US commuting market by providing a safe, accessible and sustainable solution for companies of all sizes.”
Since its introduction to the market in 2016, BusUp has partnered with more than 150 mobility operators, and serviced more than 100 corporate customers and 500,000 passengers across two continents. Existing projects include:
- Providing Grupo Big (retailer that acquired Walmart’s Brazil operation) with demand-responsive and dedicated commute routes for their essential employees, delivering a 35% cost savings compared to existing operation.
- Creating a shared shuttle program for Lagoas Park, one of the largest tech parks in Europe, utilized by IT companies such as Cognizant, Qualitest and Majorel with the result of that achieved a 29% cost savings when compared to traditional shuttle commuting services. “BusUp is very competitive in terms of costs and routes availability because we can use other companies’ routes just as they use ours,” said Bruno Santos, Country HR Head at Cognizant.
- Expanding ridership for an employee shuttle program utilized by Louis Vuitton textile workers that delivered a 15% cost savings when compared to traditional services.
About BusUp
BusUp is a mobility service provider that specializes in efficient and flexible corporate commuting services, and is the first company in the world to offer shared corporate shuttle services. With more than 5 years of existence, BusUp is already a global company that is currently fully operational in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America for large corporations such as Accenture, Roche, Siemens, Cognizant, Nestlé, DXC Technologies, Louis Vuitton, etc. Thanks to its technology and its innovative business model BusUp has disrupted a very traditional and low digitized sector, bringing efficiency and convenience to all its stakeholders: passengers, clients, operators, and public administration. Since its inception, BusUp has partnered with more than 150 operators and attended more than 100 clients, exceeding 500,000 passengers worldwide. To learn more about BusUp, visit www.busup.com.
