Teleport Creators Raise $9 Million To Build Decentralized Uber Rival On Solana (decrypt.co) 23
The Decentralized Engineering Corporation (DEC) has raised $9 million in seed funding to create a decentralized ridesharing service on Solana -- a concept that's been theorized by Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin and attempted by various startups over the years. Decrypt reports: DEC announced today that it has raised $9 million in seed funding to build out The Rideshare Protocol, or TRIP, which is designed to power ridesharing apps from a variety of future companies. They'll all share the same core technology to connect drivers with riders, and DEC is building Teleport as the first application to prove out the framework. The seed round was co-led by Foundation Capital and Road Capital, with participation from Thursday Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, 305 Ventures, and Common Metal. Individual strategic investors include Uber's third-ever employee, engineer Ryan McKillen, as well as social media influencer Jake Paul, Flexport founder Ryan Petersen, and Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero.
Paul Bohm, CEO of DEC and founder of Teleport, told Decrypt that ridesharing giant Uber "essentially runs a monopoly -- it's very centralized." Uber provides the platform that connects drivers to riders and takes a significant cut of the fee, commanding an estimated 72% of the U.S. ride-sharing market as of June, per data from Bloomberg. TRIP is designed as a decentralized protocol that various app makers can plug into as a marketplace that connects drivers and passengers, all without a centralized force at the heart. Bohm believes this will spur both cooperation and competition, encouraging participants to buck the model of giants like Uber and Lyft while also pushing companies to innovate to create the best app around a shared marketplace. A token will be used for decentralized governance of the protocol too, Bohm said.
Teleport is designed to look and act much like an Uber or Lyft app for seamless onboarding of riders and drivers alike with no crypto required. Riders can pay with either a credit card or the USDC stablecoin, while drivers are paid via USDC or a direct payment to a standard bank account. "We keep it very, very close," Bohm said of the app experience. "We don't want any extra steps on either the driver or rider side. But the difference is, you're no longer part of a monopoly." DEC will use the seed funding to fuel its rollout in the months ahead, with Teleport and TRIP holding demonstrations during Solana's Breakpoint conference in Lisbon in November and Art Basel Miami in December.
Paul Bohm, CEO of DEC and founder of Teleport, told Decrypt that ridesharing giant Uber "essentially runs a monopoly -- it's very centralized." Uber provides the platform that connects drivers to riders and takes a significant cut of the fee, commanding an estimated 72% of the U.S. ride-sharing market as of June, per data from Bloomberg. TRIP is designed as a decentralized protocol that various app makers can plug into as a marketplace that connects drivers and passengers, all without a centralized force at the heart. Bohm believes this will spur both cooperation and competition, encouraging participants to buck the model of giants like Uber and Lyft while also pushing companies to innovate to create the best app around a shared marketplace. A token will be used for decentralized governance of the protocol too, Bohm said.
Teleport is designed to look and act much like an Uber or Lyft app for seamless onboarding of riders and drivers alike with no crypto required. Riders can pay with either a credit card or the USDC stablecoin, while drivers are paid via USDC or a direct payment to a standard bank account. "We keep it very, very close," Bohm said of the app experience. "We don't want any extra steps on either the driver or rider side. But the difference is, you're no longer part of a monopoly." DEC will use the seed funding to fuel its rollout in the months ahead, with Teleport and TRIP holding demonstrations during Solana's Breakpoint conference in Lisbon in November and Art Basel Miami in December.
Why would you need to connect (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, it's just you paying someone to use their car to drive you where you want to go and drop you off, completely unlike a taxi service. Plus the car doesn't even say "Taxi" anywhere on it so I think that proves it's not a taxi.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh great, another app that I need to give my cell phone number, address, payment info, and essentially the knowledge of when I won't be home. I'm glad they accept and pay their drivers using cryptocurrency because that makes it seem so much more trendy.
I wonder if they'll screen their drivers any better than Lyft or Uber do?
Re:Why would you need to connect (Score:4, Interesting)
The biggest problem with this idea is that Uber and Lyft are losing money.
They are subsidizing the fares with investor money.
It is hard to compete with free. It is even harder to compete with a company willing to burn money.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, remember Uber and Lyft are planning on eventually driving competition out, at which point they can jack prices up. If some people really do implement a distributed competitor, there's a good chance that this represents a steady-state baseline of what the industry is actually worth, something we have actually seen happen in the tech industry, kinda.
I think it won't work great for a few reasons. First, and skip to the next paragraph if you hate cryptocurrency stuff, the real goal of many cryptocurrenc
Re: (Score:2)
"Uber and Lyft are planning on eventually driving competition out, at which point they can jack prices up."
I thought the end game was being the dominant player in the field when fully self driving cars lets them get rid of the drivers?
Re: (Score:2)
I appreciate your overall analysis on this project, but I have to say I can't see how it wouldn't be a better deal for drivers. Having done some rideshare driving full time myself and talked with others doing the same, it's clear at this point that Lyft and Uber routinely take well over 50% of the fare these days-- in some cases more than 70%. It's insane.
Whatever the overhead costs of this thing might be, I strongly doubt it would be that high.
Re: (Score:2)
So many problems in the world (Score:2)
The world is facing many serious problems. I'm glad that folks are working on Yet Another Not-A-Taxi App, because we don't have enough.
Now with more blockchain!
Re:So many problems in the world (Score:5, Interesting)
"Please don't tell me this pitch is going to be Uber for the blockchain"
"No! Its Blockchain for the Uber!"
"Sold! Innovation!"
I hate marketing people. I came into work the other day and the marketing people have put up a big presentation about how all our stuff is on the blockchain and invented some ridicculous videogame for "gamifying" the GIS industrial data we work with. Like, my dudes , do you ACTUALLY think atmospheric scientists are going to be more "engaged" if its a video game, and no we dont do ANY blockchain.
I went to the big boss and complained and said we need to take that shit down and he called me a "grey beard curmudgen" and that "We'll be adding these features maybe next few weeks!". So I explained to him that video games are probablty the most expensive category of software outside of operating systems to develop, and theres no fucking way investors will loan him the 2-3 million dollars required to hire a team of 3D artists , motion capture specialists, a fucking orchestra for the sound track, and then another 2-3 million for the marketing just for a hare brained concept that SOMEHOW this will make academics hire us to do upper atmosphere CO2 interpolation maps.
He rapidly got the point.
Re: (Score:1)
Gamification [wikipedia.org] of something usually involves creating a competitive scoreboard or single-user story/performance track with somewhat-randomized rewards for the targeted behavior, not motion capture and music and graphic art. I'm not sure how -- or even whether -- that might apply to "industrial GIS data", but you seem to have mistaken what it means.
Re: So many problems in the world (Score:2)
Uber has neve rmade a profit (Score:1)
Convenient (Score:2)
More dumb blockchain shit (Score:4, Insightful)
There absolutely is a market for a decentralised system for Uber - it's just that blockchain adds fuck all of use other than a way to make some grifter a rich before everyone realises it's useless.
If taxi companies weren't so useless they could have collaborated to build an open source platform that they all could use. A single application that worked globally and covered all (or most, or even some) would still be amazing.
I hate using Uber but the fact I can just open it anywhere and know what is going to happen is very helpful. Literally nothing blockchain brings to the party but building this as an open source project and offering commercial support feels like a winner.
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If the answer is blockchain or crypto, you've almost certainly asked the wrong question.
There are very few areas where either is useful.
It'll never work (Score:3)
Isn't rideshare another word for a bus? (Score:1)
Solana is a centralized blockchain (Score:3)
Perfect timing (Score:2)
Exactly the use case and business model suited to ex-Twitter emergent OSS X.com disintermediation platform Elon Musk will build in the future.