Mobility as Marketing: Burger King is offering one-cent Whoppers anytime a customer is within 600 feet of a McDonalds. And get this …. a whopping 50,000 people have cashed in on the deal. Rides to places where people spend money want to be free, but more on that next year. LINK
- FLASHBACK: Burger King turns real car crashes at its restaurants into ads to promote their delivery service. I’d like to take this opportunity to profess my love for BK management. They get it. LINK
Ride-hailing firm Grab invests $100 million in OYO Hotels & Homes. OYO claims to have more than 10,000 franchised or leased hotels in its network. Speculation is it’s meant to increase the use and popularity of “Grab Pay” to dominate the $500 billion mobile payment market in Asia. Another wonderful example of mobility as a competitive advantage. LINK
Firefly, which provides a digital advertising platform for rideshare drivers, emerged from stealth and announced it has raised $21.5 million in funding. LINK
Uber as an advertisement platform. Uber’s senior director and head of Eats has confirmed their intention of becoming an ad company. Whether a chef wants to boost orders during slow hours, get rid of surplus food, preference high-margin items or just score new customers. There’s a bunch of different ways Uber can get those ad dollars. LINK
On-line auto dealership Vroom raises $146M. Series G funding round was led by off-line retail giant Auto Nation. LINK
- FLASHBACK: Used-car sales boom as new cars get too pricey for many. The price gap between new and pre-owned cars has widened to a near decade high. LINK
Hertz installs face scanning to turn a 2-minute rental process into a 30-second process. LINK
Waymo self-driving vans in Arizona get guns pulled on them, rocks were thrown at them, and tires slashed because …. well, actually, no one knows why. But, Phil Simon, an information systems lecturer at Arizona State University and author of several books on technology, said “This stuff is happening fast and a lot of people are concerned that technology” will “terk er jerbs.” LINK
HyreCar, the rent to own marketplace for ride-sharing drivers, has launched a free credit repair program for rideshare drivers. They bring dealers and rideshare drivers together to help car renters become car owners. LINK
- FLASHBACK: Uber shuts down its rental car program for Uber riders. Uber will continue to operate a program with Getaround that lets Uber drivers rent cars for $5 an hour. LINK
New York entertains the idea of using the tax revenue from legal weed sales to assist their $40 billion public transit project. Other US cities have already started using gambling and drug money to fund schools. LINK
In an effort to make it easier for event planners to find women for panel discussions Kathryn Schox, General Partner at Trucks Venture Capital is compiling a list. The list includes women who are leaders and who are in mobility startups. LINK
