Welcome to the Tech Weekly, NEO’s weekly news monitoring of key developments in the food and mobility tech industries:
- In support of India’s vaccination effort, Uber has partnered with HelpAge India, dedicated to serving the disadvantaged elderly. Uber will provide 25,000 free rides over the coming months to facilitate the vaccination of the vulnerable and disadvantaged elderly in 19 cities. (The Times of India)
- Uber and Lyft are spending millions on driver bonuses to end a shortage in drivers. Riders are returning to ride-hailing apps, and the companies are straining to meet demand. (Bloomberg)
- Grab co-founder Anthony Tan will increase his voting rights in the company to 60.4% after an upcoming NASDAQ listing, while owning just 2.2% of the Singaporean tech group. (Financial Times)
- Uber is attempting to break what it called Just Eat Takeaway.com’s “monopolistic” stranglehold on the German food delivery market. Uber Eats will launch in Germany for the first time over the next few weeks, starting in Berlin, in its biggest entry to a new country since 2018. (Financial Times)
- Food aggregator Zomato on Wednesday rolled out a priority delivery feature on its app that will let customers check out food orders meant for covid-19 related emergencies. Zomato’s founder Deepinder Goyal took to Twitter on Wednesday night to announce the roll-out of the feature in association with thousands of its restaurant partner. (Mint)
- SoftBank CEO Masaysohi Son seems close to taking a bet on India’s online food delivery market. SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 is in advanced stages of talks to invest around $400-500 million in Indian online food platform Swiggy, two people close to the development said. (Times of India)
- Meituan raised $10 billion to fight Alibaba in the grocery arena via a share placement and convertible bonds sale, in what became the largest-ever sale of new shares by a Hong Kong-listed company. (Bloomberg)
- SoftBank-backed upstart Ola plans to build the world’s largest shooter charging network in India. The planned network is set to consist of 100,000 charging points. (Bloomberg)
- Dubai is set to launch self-driving electric taxi and ride-hailing services. Cruise will be the exclusive provider of the services until 2029, which aim to help Dubai convert 25% of total trips into self-driving ones across different modes of transport by 2030. (Smart Cities)
- The European green shared mobility startup Go Sharing has chosen Earth Day day to announce a £43.16 million (€50 million approx.) investment round. (UK Tech News)
- Toyota, an early pioneer in electrification that has since fallen far behind its competitors, finally announced an electric vehicle strategy that will result in 15 new battery-electric vehicles released by 2025. (The Verge)
- Odey Asset Management has revealed to clients that it took a short position against Deliveroo, in the first sign that hedge funds are targeting the food delivery company after last month’s initial public offering. (Financial Times)