Uber has announced plans to acquire the New York City-based e-bike startup, Jump Bikes.
The car-hailing app has not confirmed what the deal is worth but it is estimated to be $100 million in cash and stock.
Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a blog post that the deal would help in his mission of “bringing together multiple modes of transportation within the Uber app—so that you can choose the fastest or most affordable way to get where you’re going, whether that’s in an Uber, on a bike, on the subway, or more.”
When completed, the deal will give Uber access to Jump’s 12,000 dockless and GPS-enabled bikes in 40 cities across six countries including China and the US.
The start-up’s CEO, Ryan Rzepecki, was initially concerned at the proposed deal and shared concerns over Uber’s recent controversies.
He wrote: “When we first began talking to Uber they were going through an extremely difficult time, with negative headlines each week and a massive change in leadership. We expected to find a toxic work environment and a broken culture.”
“Instead, everyone we met was smart, passionate, and genuinely wanted to help our team succeed. Through our collaboration we realized that we shared Uber’s vision of multi-modal mobility and had the same goal of decreasing car ownership.
“Even more importantly, we could see the shift in the company once Dara was named CEO as he began leading with humility and in a way that we felt reflected our values. It soon became clear that with such strong synergies and alignment on mission, JUMP could better accomplish its goals if it were part of Uber,” he added.
Despite concerns about the deal resulting in extreme losses for Uber, Khosrowshahi said the company were not thinking in terms of profits or IPO yet but are focusing on consumers first.
