bp ventures has invested $6 million in all-electric ride-hailing enterprise, Freebee, a Miami-based firm that gives free, on-demand transportation to native communities by their cell app Journey Freebee. bp led the enterprise’s $8 million Sequence A funding spherical, with assist from Freebee’s present infrastructure capital companion, Tensile Mobility.
Freebee’s free-to-the-user journeys are financed by native governments as a part of municipalities’ public transport networks, and likewise by personal entities resembling company enterprise parks, motels and resorts, and college campuses. Freebee has established itself as a premier mobility platform within the state of Florida and seeks to deal with the numerous points arising from elevated use of non-public automobiles within the US, like site visitors congestion and elevated carbon emissions.
Freebee owns a fleet of greater than 150 electrical automobiles and employs greater than 230+ drivers on a full-time foundation. This funding will assist Freebee enhance its expertise improvement capability and increase the crew, serving to to scale the enterprise throughout the US. The service is at present out there in additional than 25 municipalities and campuses in Florida and Virginia, with Freebee focusing on enlargement into seven new cities within the two states earlier than the tip of 2022. The enlargement is predicted to assist the enterprise transfer over 1 million passengers by the tip of the yr.
In addition to main the funding spherical, bp will even work with Freebee on scaling the enterprise throughout the US and can discover alternatives to collaborate on the roll-out of EV charging infrastructure, progressing bp’s mobility progress engine.
“bp ventures invests in corporations that align with bp’s ambition to be internet zero by 2050 or sooner. The crew at Freebee has give you an excellent enterprise concept that incentivizes journey by electrical automobiles with none price to the consumer. We’re very proud to have made our first funding in Miami’s thriving tech sector and look ahead to getting began with the crew.”
Shaun Healey, principal at bp ventures
Kris Kimball, co-founder and managing companion at Freebee, added: “Dwelling in Miami as a scholar, my co-founder Jason Spiegel and I felt there have to be a extra economical means of getting across the metropolis. With Freebee we’ve got turned ride-hailing on its head, offering a service that’s accelerating the decarbonization of mobility and is free to customers. This funding from bp ventures is an endorsement of our concept and collectively we’ll roll Freebee out throughout the US.”
Jason Spiegel, co-founder and managing companion at Freebee, added: “We’re actually excited on the alternative to companion with bp ventures, which shares most of the similar values that Freebee seeks to unfold in our communities every day. Our objective is to speed up our progress and proceed executing our mission of offering equitable and accessible transportation, which in flip helps drive financial improvement and stimulates the native economies.”
Shaun Healey, Principal at bp ventures, will be a part of the Freebee board, together with Dabo Horsfall, CEO of Tensile Mobility.
To this point, bp ventures has invested nearly $1bn in additional than 40 lively investments throughout seven geographies.
