Uber has acquired Jump, a GPS-enabled electric bike share service, the latest move by the ride-hailing company to make money off of people ditching their cars. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal illustrates the swirl of investor activity in the increasingly competitive business of bike sharing.
Jump is a “dockless” bike share service. Jump bikes are integrated with the GPS and payment system—unlike docked bike share programs that put that tech in its docking stations.
Uber and Jump already had a relationship. In February, Uber added an option in its app that lets users reserve and rent Jump bikes in San Francisco. Jump also operates its fleet in Washington D.C. and Sacramento, Calif.
Jump is not some newcomer. The company, founded by Ryan Rzepecki, originally incorporated in 2010 as Social Bikes. The first pilot programs, which involved 150 bikes across four areas, launched a few years later.
Jump has grown substantially since those early days. By 2017, thousands of bikes were in 40 cities. In the past year, Jump has transitioned from a company that sells its dockless bikes to operating its own fleets. In January, Jump received a permit from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority to operate its dockless bike service in San Francisco for 18 months. The permit will be reviewed before the company is allowed to add more bikes to the fleet.
