GM continues to solidify challenge to Uber with acquisition of Sidecar, trademark on Maven

[Jeff Causey]

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Earlier this month General Motors revealed that they had entered into a partnership with Uber rival Lyft that included a significant stake in the ride-sharing company. The investment is part of a move by General Motors to fend off, or at least prepare for, changes to the automotive buyer’s market induced by companies like Uber. GM is also working on driverless car technology and some think that could be combined with ride-sharing technology to meet a market need for people with no cars and little or no access to public transportation. Now GM purchased another company in the ride-sharing space, Sidecar Technologies Inc., which is credited with actually creating the concept before companies like Uber and Lyft came along to enter and eventually dominate the market.

According to sources familiar with the transaction, GM purchased Sidecar for less than $39 million. GM spokesman David Roman says GM is acquiring assets, including technology, and employees to support the recent Lyft alliance and other projects under way at GM. Among the employees moving over to GM is Sidecar co-founder and CTO Jahan Khanna, but CEO and fellow co-founder Sunil Paul is not making the move.

Just this past December, Sidecar announced they were shutting down their service. The company originally launched in 2012 and offered to match drivers with riders. Since then Uber, Lyft and other companies entered the space created by Sidecar and soon took over. This past year in a bid to stay afloat, Sidecar modified its business to focus on handling deliveries for small businesses. They even managed to strike up a partnership with Yelp to help with the Eat24 food-delivery service.

In addition to the recent acquisitions and partnerships in the ride-sharing space, sources also indicate GM’s bundle of transportation services will be called Maven and will be headed up by GM president Daniel Ammann. A trademark for Maven was filed by GM back in November 2015 and according to that filing, GM described Maven as “application software for connecting vehicle drivers and passengers and for coordinating transportation services; software for use in planning, monitoring and controlling urban transportation.”

source: Bloomberg


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