RidePal

RidePal
Industry Service
Founded 2011
Headquarters San Francisco, California
Key people
 Brian Moore CEO, Christopher Haire CTO, Dominic Haigh CRO, Bob Martin CMO
Products Corporate Commuter Bus / Shuttle Services
Slogan Drive less, live more
Website www.ridepal.com

RidePal offers corporate commute bus services for companies and individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. RidePal works on a shared mobility or collaborative consumption model for corporate commuters,[1] with route planning based on commuter demand and geography, as well as corporate recruiting priorities.[2]

The genesis for RidePal came from co-founder Nathalie Criou's experience commuting from San Francisco to her job at Google in Mountain View on Google-provided buses, then losing access to the bus service when she moved to another job.[3]

The cleantech business incubator Greenstart selected RidePal as one of 5 companies out of 152 applicants for its second accelerator program in February 2012.[4][5] In August 2012 RidePal closed a seed investment round of $500,000.[6] Investors included Jeff Clarke, 500 Startups and Lisa Gansky.[7]

In August 2012 RidePal added four new routes to its network.[8]

The Mayor of Palo Alto, Greg Scharff, said at the September 2013 launch of RidePal's service to Palo Alto from San Francisco: "This service takes cars off the road and allows for more growth. You're allowing Silicon Valley to grow - thanks for that".[9]

In September 2013 RidePal announced Series A funding of $3.2m led by Nat Goldhaber of Claremont Creek Ventures and Volvo Venture Capital Group, and stated that they have over 30 customers including Intuit, Groupon and Clinovo[10][11]

In October 2014, RidePal partnered with YP to launch its first shared Los Angeles route, with service from West LA to and from Glendale. This brought the total number of active service routes to 26.[12]

On June 25, 2015, RidePal announced that they had run out of funding and would cease operations.[13]

References

  1. ↑ Garthwaite, Josie. RidePal to Help Bay Area Residents Commute Like Google Employees. New York Times. March 1st, 2012
  2. ↑ Covington, Phil. No Company Commuter Shuttle? Bay Area’s RidePal Has The Answer. Triple Pundit September 21st, 2012
  3. ↑ Nathalie Criou, Ridepal, Woman Entrepreneur GothamGal October 15th, 2012
  4. ↑ Fehrenbacher, Katie. Amidst Hard Times for Greentech, Digital Green Startups Emerge. GigaOM. May 2nd, 2012
  5. ↑ Nathalie Criou’s RidePal is in Greenstart’s Chosen 5. WowElle. February 16th, 2012
  6. ↑ Perez, Sarah. RidePal, The “Google Bus For The Rest Of Us,” Scores $500K From 500 Startups & Others, TechCrunch. September 10th, 2012
  7. ↑ Gansky, Lisa. Post by Lisa Gansky on AngelList. AngelList, September 2012
  8. ↑ Jerphagnon, Olivier. RidePal tunes its story and expands green “perk” to companies in Silicon Valley. Green Frog. August 22nd, 2012
  9. ↑ Around Town - Peace in a Pod. Palo Alto Weekly. September 13th, 2013
  10. ↑ RidePal Announces a $3.2M Series A Round Led by Claremont Creek Ventures and Volvo Group Venture Capital. Wall Street Journal MarketWatch. September 26th, 2013
  11. ↑ Roush, Wade. RidePal and the Private Bus Wars: Q&A with Founder Nathalie Criou. Xconomy. December 8th, 2013
  12. ↑ http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tech-talent-wars-20141022-story.html#page=1
  13. ↑ https://fortune.com/2015/06/25/ridepal-ceases-operations/
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