sharing economy
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China’s on-demand bicycles have now become advertising space
Here’s a fitting Friday anecdote to illustrate the growing ubiquity of bike-sharing startups, and their rides, in China. One of the largest companies in the space is now using some of its bikes as an advertising canvas. Ofo, one of two billion-dollar startups that supplies dock-less bicycles across China, has been spotted offering a number of bikes that are customized with Minions… Read More
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Homemade food-sharing startup Josephine makes another attempt to legalize its business in CA
Josephine, the startup that lets people cook meals inside their homes and sell them to neighbors, is sponsoring a recently-introduced homemade food bill in California that aims to legalize the sales of prepared meals and other food from small-scale, home kitchen operations. Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) introduced the bill, AB 626, this week. Josephine is sponsoring this bill… Read More
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The inside story of the rise and rise of Uber
Brad Stone’s new book, The Upstarts, recounts the surprising rise – and possible fall – of the sharing economy. By looking at Uber and AirBnB, Stone brings life and drama to the origin stories of how a few lucky guys made the right decisions at exactly the right time. What follows is an excerpt detailing the rise of Uber. Back in the summer of 2013, just as Silicon… Read More
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Postmates and DoorDash are testing delivery by robot with Starship Technologies
Not even flexible, freelance jobs in the on-demand economy will be saved from the siege of automation. Starship Technologies is putting its self-driving delivery robots to work in the US. Specifically, its first US partners are the food delivery startup DoorDash, and courier marketplace Postmates, which are beginning pilot tests with Starship’s delivery robots in Redwood City, Calif. Read More
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GigRove wants to match skilled freelancers and startups with spare rooms
Bootstrapping London-based startup GigRove is looking to carve out a niche in the collaborative consumption space as a matching platform for digital workers with itchy feet and startups with a spare room and pressing skills need. Which is all very zeitgeisty in these digital nomad/citizen of nowhere times. Read More
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Crunch Network
There’s more than one way to share your car
Over the past several years, the popularity of “sharing economy” models has skyrocketed. The key to success has been finding a category with high demand but low capacity utilization, then relentlessly focusing on the customer experience. Although vehicles are among the most expensive assets purchased by consumers, their historical utilization rate has generally hovered around a… Read More
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Bikeshare conference brings pedal power to the people
As the North American Bikeshare Association begins its annual conference in Austin, Texas, participants will be focusing on social equity. If you’re wondering what that means, wonder no more, thanks to a statement from the NABSA’s project manager, Matt Martin: “Social equity in bikeshare means making a healthy and versatile form of transportation accessible to those who… Read More
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Deliveroo riders in North London push to unionize
A group of Deliveroo riders in North London is pushing for improved pay and conditions by taking legal steps to obtain union recognition. To achieve that they will need a tribunal to judge at least some of them to be workers, rather than self-employed contractors as Deliveroo describes them. Read More
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Vehicle security device Ernest launches today
Ernest is a bit difficult to describe. It’s a device, it’s two devices, it’s an app, and according to its founder, Arturs Pumpurs, it’s a kind of virtual butler. The system secures your vehicle, tells you where it is, and controls your garage door or, if you have one, gate. The Kickstarter campaign starts October 28 and runs through December 7. The project began as a… Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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Accela appears headed for exit with new CEO
Accela, the nearly two decade old gov tech startup dreaming of finding new life as a problem solver for the sharing economy, brought in a new CEO to replace Maury Blackman who served as the company’s anchor since 2007. During Blackman’s tenure, the SaaS company brought a number of open data and regulatory management solutions to market for governments. Mark Jung, the incoming… Read More
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Crunch Network
The new collaboration economy
Technology is creating a new generation of companies that increasingly choose to collaborate as a coordinated ecosystem, even if they have overlapping or competitive offerings. This transparent way of doing business is transforming the way services are delivered and products are developed. Read More
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Food-sharing startup Josephine doesn’t want to be like the rest of the gig economy
Silicon Valley’s gig economy isn’t known for being very supportive of its core workers — the ones working on the ground, making deliveries and picking up and dropping off passengers. The “best” cases in point are Uber and Lyft, two on-demand ride companies that have been resistant to allow drivers to access their fair share of wealth. Josephine, the startup… Read More
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You’re a travel agent! You’re a travel agent! Everyone’s a travel agent!
Amsterdam-based TRVL is aiming to shake up the travel industry by turning you (and that guy, and the lady over there and that chap over there, too) into a travel agent. The platform is a sharing-economy approach to booking travel for your friends and complete and utter strangers. Read More
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Turo doubles its inventory, lets you search by color
Sharing-economy-powered car rental competitor Turo is taking its battle with the incumbents to places few have dared venture. The company used computer vision to determine the color of all the cars in its inventory and is making it possible to select the car for your next adventure based on your favorite color. The company also announced it has doubled the number of cars available on the platform. Read More
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Crunch Network
Tesla’s best-laid plans will have a challenge in convergence
Driverless cars and ridesharing are poised to bring about the next big tectonic movement that technology provides for the human experience. In much the same way that the mobile phone has transformed the way we live, autonomous vehicles and transportation sharing promise to change the way we move. Read More
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Tesla and Uber have more in common than you might think
Elon Musk’s new master plan catapults Tesla into a new market; car-sharing. While the idea of Tesla car-sharing seems new, it is not the first time the company’s cars, coupled with autonomous technology, have come up in discussions about the sharing economy. Back in 2015, Steve Jurvetson, a partner at Uber investor DFJ, told an audience that Uber’s Travis Kalanick had… Read More
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Car sharing leads to reduced car ownership and emissions in cities, study finds
Cars are one of the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions globally, and cars in cities can be especially heavy with their contributions, owing to traffic and population density. And while encouraging everyone to bike or use public transit probably isn’t going to convince everyone to ditch car ownership, car sharing services seem to be winning more city denizens over, and a new… Read More
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Getaround for camera gear ShareGrid raises $1M
Even if you’re an active photo or video creative, chances are that your gear will be gathering dust on a shelf at least part of the time. At the same time, other photographers and filmmakers are in need of equipment. If that sounds like a business opportunity, ShareGrid is way ahead of you, raising $1 million from Archer Gray and MHS Capital to grow beyond its test markets and open… Read More
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Crunch Network
How Hardware-as-a-Service will save IoT
Here’s the dirty little secret about the Internet of Things: The things might not work, and you might not use them. As a consumer, many of your gadgets will collect dust tucked away in a drawer. As a business, many of your devices will not perform as well as expected, turning into maintenance-heavy money pits. Read More
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