Ride sharing Startup Mobi secures seed funding from NEM Ventures
Australian based ride sharing Startup Mobi secured an Investment from NEM Ventures
NEM Ventures, the venture capital and investments arm of the NEM blockchain ecosystem, is pleased to announce investment in ride sharing startup, Mobi, which provides a safe and affordable carpooling app alternative. First hitting the Australian market in Melbourne, Mobi leverages the NEM blockchain to change the face of commuting.
Mobi were in the original back log from the NEM Community Fund and NEM Ventures is very happy to be supporting a business with a long term interest in NEM.
As this is a seed round its purpose is to help launch it into the market and onboard users, while proving the uptake of XEM goes as expected and aggregates work for the use case required.
Mobi have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) tested with a live pilot of approx 200 users and they have confirmed partnerships with 3 major universities across Australia giving access to circa 40,000 potential users to begin scaling.
Ride sharing Startup with big plans for Catapult
By integrating Catapult, Mobi is able to utilize the protocol’s features to optimize the app experience for commuters. In the app, commuters pre-arrange rides up to a week in advance, by selecting which dates and times they will be requiring or providing services. Commuters have control over who they choose to ride with, and both parties can connect in advance via the app’s chat function. Mobi are developing an incentive-driven partner network to enable businesses to connect employees for their commuting needs and allow the service to scale.
The app integrates XEM payments facilitated by aggregate transactions on NEM Catapult and XEM payments are expected to launch shortly after the public chain Catapult release. Other uses of the NEM blockchain solution will likely include multi party escrowed transactions to record payments, loyalty points and storage of data on carbon emissions and sustainability measures – which will provide data to promote behaviour change and emission reduction.
Automatic accounting, know your customer (KYC) information of the drivers to keep up to date information on the driver, car, and insurance, and encrypted message chat are being scoped by NEM specific developers.
XEM will be incorporated into the application in line with Catapult mainnet launch as it requires the use of aggregate transactions as escrow to protect the driver and passenger. Any payment made with XEM will have a 20% discount over fiat payments.
Daniel Logan, Co-founder of Mobi, commented: “In Melbourne, the first city on our roadmap, there are approximately 2.1 million commuters and 1.3 million car drivers. Mobi bridges this gap by creating a convenient and affordable way to make commuting a more positive experience for all. The app creates a sustainable solution, which can help limit carbon emissions, travel congestion, and free up much needed parking spaces across densely populated cities.
NEM allows this to happen more transparently, efficiently and cost effectively and we are happy to partner with the community strategically. NEM is built around a powerful system which provides us with direct API access to a specialized set of tested and secure on-blockchain features, and we are aligned in our mission to bring sustainable ride sharing to the masses.”
NEM Ventures are always looking for ways to utilize blockchain to promote social change, which is what drew us to this project in the first place. Mobi aims to further the sustainability agenda with a focus on creating long-term shareholder value while driving home the fact that profitability is not a trade-off for sustainability.
