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Hi there,

There’s big news on the urban mobility front this week!

The car-sharing market in Europe continues to consolidate as Berlin’s Miles Mobility, arguably one of the few profitable car-sharing operators out there, takes over WeShare from Volkswagen. 

Who would have thought that one of the few startups in a market filled with auto incumbents like VW, BMW, and Mercedes would become the last man standing in the race for commercially viable on-demand car-sharing services? 

Kudos to Miles! 
For more urban-mobility updates this week, scroll down to our TNMT Market Index Update in the lower half of today’s newsletter.

Today’s specs: 1,468 words, or 5:53 minutes of reading time.

Enjoy.
Lennart Dobravsky
Editor-in-Chief
 Trends 

Follow-up: Climate Sinners That Fly Under The Radar

We received quite a bit of praise and heat following our analysis of ultra-short flights and their respective CO2 impacts the other week.

  • Many of you appreciated the cold, hard truth about private business jets.
  • Others criticized that we would trivialize the impacts of commercial short-haul flights offered by airlines.

The most controversial fact proved to be that alternative travel modes, such as trains, exist for many short-haul routes. 

As a result, all types of short-haul flights should be banned, not only those operated by private business jets, some of you argued. 

Here is what we think

Well, we get why this fact grinds the gears of so many. 

However, we don’t necessarily agree that banning short-haul airline flights is the right thing to do (and yes, we're biased). 

  • Rather, we believe that taking a short-haul flight should never be taken lightly. 
  • Instead, such travel decisions should be carefully considered. 

Personally, I strongly disagree with the notion that the sole existence of an alternative travel mode is enough to justify the banning of flights.

Especially when the alternative, like trains, is unreliable. 

Germany is a great example for this.

Let's look at some data

Isn’t it questionable to imagine forcing business travelers to take trains, when one out of four cases has a delayed arrival?

You think I’m exaggerating? Sadly, I’m not.

 Research 

The Hype-Cycle of Future Aviation

A great deal has been written about the future of aviation.

In particular, people ponder how passenger air travel might become more sustainable in the years to come.

Undoubtedly, aviation has a measurable impact on CO2 emissions and climate change. 

As a result, technologies that might limit the carbon footprint of commercial airplanes, such as electric and hydrogen propulsion,
are heavily discussed

While this is the case, two aspects remain unclear:
  • How advanced are R&D efforts for these technologies at present?
  • When will these technologies be expected to play a meaningful role in the future of sustainable aviation?
Time for some research
We want to increase transparency surrounding these two critical questions. 

To achieve this, the Lufthansa Innovation Hub’s new Director of Research & Intelligence, Ivan Terekhov, pulled the Gartner hype cycle framework out of the drawer and applied it to all major
New Air Travel technologies.

Ivan identified eight key emerging technologies that have the potential to change the way we travel from A to B through the air. 
  • These technologies include hydrogen and electric flying, air taxis a.k.a eVTOLs, futuristic airships, supersonic commercial jets, autonomously-flying aircraft as well as space-travel jets. 
  • Given its potential to reduce aviation’s CO2 footprint, Ivan also included Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) as a technology to consider, even though it isn’t exactly a new technology on the same dimension as those previously mentioned.
The state of next-gen aviation
Over the next few weeks, we will explain each of these eight technologies in detail and evaluate their market readiness by mapping them across the hype cycle framework.

Today, we want to start with the first category, SAF.
As you can see, SAF is positioned all the way at the right side of the Hype Cycle. 
  • This means that SAF is the most ready-to-use technology out of all the eight categories.
  • To learn more about how we arrived at this assessment, check out the full article.
And don’t forget, we will share the assessment of all other categories over the next few weeks. 

This will be fun!

So, stay tuned. It will certainly become our longest analysis ever.
Read Article
 Markets 

The TNMT October Update

Another month has passed, so it’s time for our next TNMT Market Index Update.

Here’s a quick reminder for all the newbies in our email list: 

In our
TNMT Market Index, we track the progress of the 40 most-iconic Travel and Mobility Tech companies that have transitioned from being privately-held tech startups to publicly-traded travel and mobility corporations over the past two years. 

Given this, the index represents a fantastic proxy for the health of tech companies shaping the future of travel and mobility.
We added a new element to our TNMT Index
As part of our ongoing index development, we introduced a new sub-index to the dashboard. 

It’s called the TNMT SPAC Index.
  • In this index version, we’re charting the development of SPAC-merged companies from within the basket of our Travel and Mobility stocks to see how they perform against the companies that entered stock markets via classic IPOs.
  • Examples of these companies include Vacasa, Sonder, Lilium, Joby Aviation, Helbiz, and Grab.
As you can see below, it’s an interesting comparison to make.

And it turns out that SPAC-based companies have underperformed when compared to their regular TNMT counterparts.
If you’re curious as to why this is the case, feel free to revisit our SPAC Mania Report from earlier this year.
But back to the October update
Let’s talk about at how the TNMT Market Index performed across October.

In Anna Schneider's most recent
September commentary, we noted that the TNMT sector was testing this year’s price bottoms—in line with the overall stock market. 

Unfortunately, this behavior continued throughout the past month. 

However, hope is on the horizon. 

We have been witnessing a slight uptick starting from late October on, driven by news, such as Airbnb posting its
best quarter on relentless travel demand.
Travel beats Mobility
On another level of continuity, which has taken place since September, the TNMT Index lows we’ve been seeing in October were driven primarily by the Mobility-Tech stocks in our sector more so than their travel peers. 

While our Travel-Tech index is down about 23% year-to-date, which is less than four percentage points lower than the S&P 500 as of November 1st, the Mobility-Tech Index is trending almost 40% below where it started at the beginning of the year.
Why is this the case? 

The macro concerns over high inflation and a looming recession are impacting mobility companies more than travel firms. 

How exactly?

Travel stays strong.

Thus far, people haven't slowed down their travel activities and respective spending.
  • Skift reports that the normal fall slump after the summer months did not occur this year. This highlights how the vacation season has stretched into the fall by the ongoing phenomenon of Revenge Travel.
  • In fact, a record high 57% of the U.S. population, for example, traveled in September. This is an even higher share than during the summer months (at least in the U.S.).
Mobility is struggling
On the mobility front, things are more dire.

This is hardly surprising considering Mobility Tech companies continue to face ongoing challenges.

A few recent examples from the realm of micro-mobility include:
  • E-scooter pioneer Bird announced, two weeks ago, that it is exiting several markets across the globe, among them Germany, Sweden and Norway. This comes after the NYSE-listed company laid off more than 20% of its staff in June. Consequently, investor confidence is declining and in our dashboard, the stock price is down more than 80% year-to-date.
  • Helbiz, another micro-mobility player listed in the United States, is facing a similar lack of confidence from the side of investors. The company has received warnings from the Nasdaq exchange for trading below the $1 per share minimum. Even the recent acquisition of another leading micro-mobility company, Wheels, along with Helbiz’ promise to double its annual revenue, failed to push up the company’s stock price.
A singular exception to this momentum is Donkey Republic
  • In early October, the bike-sharing provider from Denmark announced its record-high quarterly revenue, which followed a strong summer season and subsidized operations. 
  • This continued to push the company’s stock price above the $1+ benchmark, a positive development that started in late August and continued through October. In our dashboard, the company’s stock price is trading at +4.6% year-to-date.
For more information and detailed looks at all the companies in our TNMT Market Index, check out our full Dashboard on TNMT.com.
Access Dashboard
 Press Picks 

Our Recommended Must Reads 

CAR-SHARING TAKEOVER – Volkswagen AG is selling its WeShare car-sharing business to German startup Miles Mobility GmbH as Europe’s biggest automaker retreats from what has largely been an unprofitable industry.
 Read more by Bloomberg ($)
NEW CO2 STUDY – A brand new study assesses the rationale for banning super short-haul passenger flights and finds that reducing the impact of aviation on climate requires the targeting of longer flights.
 Read more by the Journal of Transport Geography
EVTOL FUNDING – Volocopter, one of the best-funded companies working on making urban flights as easy as opening an app has just raised a $182M in additional Series E funding. 
 Read more by sifted
ELECTRIC AVIATION STRATEGY  United Airlines is beginning to provide a picture of how electric planes will be part of its future and a key to remaking the way travelers think about aviation as a choice for shorter-distance routes.
 Read more by CNBC  
AUTONOMOUS SHUT DOWN  Argo AI, the self-driving startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, is shutting down. Employees were notified during an all-hands meeting last week on Wednesday.
 Read more by The Verge
PROPELLER COMEBACK – The propeller is central to a radical new engine design as the aviation industry tries to innovate its way out of fossil-fuel dependence.
 Read more by Bloomberg
 Deal Tracker 

Most Recent Venture Capital Deals

Volocopter - The air taxi manufacturer added $182M to its Series E funding, in addition to the $170M Series E from earlier this year. The deal was reportedly led by WP Investment and will support Volocopter’s goals of launching its first air taxi routes in the next two years.

Cover Genius - The InsurTech company, which offers embedded insurance products to airlines and OTAs among other verticals, raised $70M in Series D funding, led by Dawn Capital.

CharterUp - the developer of a US-based marketplace for bus charter that provides real-time quotes, raised $60M in Series A funding in a deal led by Tritium Partners. Founded in 2018, this is the company’s first funding round.

Selina - The millennial- and Gen-Z-centric hotel group went public on the Nasdaq via SPAC last week, opening at $9.75 per share and closing the same day at $40.90, generating roughly $54M in gross proceeds which will be used to accelerate growth.

Canary Technologies - The San Francisco-based company, which aims to digitize the hotel guest experience from post-booking to checkout, raised $30M in Series B funding, led by Insight Partners and with continued participation from F-Prime Capital, Y-Combinator, and others.

WeTravel - The booking and payments platform brought in $27M in Series B funding, led by Left Lane Capital, to add FinTech solutions to the platform.

Bob W - The short-stay apartment rental business brought in $21M in Series A funding, which will be used for further expansion and its tech platform development. IDC Ventures, Elevator Ventures, Verve Ventures, and Flashpoint led the round for the Helsinki-based business.

Way - The Texas-based brand activation technology company secured $20M in Series A funding, led by Tiger Global, to help luxury, lifestyle, and boutique hotels offer curated immersive experiences. 

Breezeway - The Boston-based hospitality tech company secured $15M in Series B funding to further develop its operations management tools and guest experience platform. The round was led by Catalyst Investors.

Invygo - The Dubai- and Riyadh-based car subscription startup raised $10M in Series A funding, led by Middle East Venture Partners, to expand into new markets and enhance its core technology. 

Seqoon - The Cairo-based company, which enables people to buy shares in vacation homes, secured pre-seed funding of $500k. The funding was backed by Banque Misr.

Itinari - the Belgium-based platform for travel tips was acquired by Live the World, a Belgian trip-planning platform, for an undisclosed amount. Live the World last concluded a round of Angel funding in 2022, raising $0.15M from undisclosed investors.

PaulCamper - The Berlin-based campervan sharing platform was acquired by Camplify, Australia’s largest campervan and motorhome sharing platform, for over $29M. It is Camplify’s third such acquisition this year and is meant to accelerate its growth in the European market.

Roomex - The Ireland-based corporate accommodation specialist was acquired by American B2B payment solutions company FleetCor for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition is U.S.-based FleetCor’s third in the travel and transport space this year alone and expands their business to Europe.

Sunshine Valley - The Chinese nature holiday camp operator raised an undisclosed amount of Series B+ funding from Trip.com Group (formerly Ctrip), China’s largest OTA. Following the investment, Trip.com Group now owns 6.9% of the total shares of Sunshine Valley.

WeShare - Volkswagen’s electric car-sharing service was acquired for an undisclosed amount by Miles Mobility. Miles will expand their customer offering directly with WeShare’s fleet as well as 10,000 newly ordered electric cars from various carmakers. The sale by VW follows BMW’s and Mercedes-Benz’s decisions to sell their joint car-sharing business earlier this year.

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