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When we make investments at Homebrew we look for many different things in founders. We always back founders who have a unique vision for how the world should work differently than it does today. But even more important is relentlessness in pursuing that vision. We found those things and much more when we learned about Ride Report. So it was easy for us to agree to play the lead role in the company’s seed financing, which was announced last week. Ride Report already works with more than 30 cities in the US and overseas. We’re ecstatic to be part of the company’s journey as it grows to hundreds of cities in the coming quarters.
WHO: William Henderson grew up fascinated by public transportation and how it shaped cities. Later in life, when he began to commute by bicycle, he saw an opportunity to make cities safer for cyclists and started advocacy work to that end. With the emergence of electric bikes and scooters, William saw the opportunity to expand Ride Report’s work to include micromobility solutions more broadly. And he’s now full steam ahead on making the movement of people and goods within cities more safe, reliable and equitable.
WHAT: Ride Report’s long term goal is to empower cities to make transportation more equitable, efficient and sustainable. The company has a vision for the world in which cities are able to quickly and intelligently adapt physical and digital resources to enable safer and more reliable transportation for their entire populations. The tools and data that Ride Report provides to cities enables them to shape, audit, manage, analyze and enforce micromobility policies.
HOW: Micromobility services generate enormous amounts of data about rides and citizens and are negotiating agreements and rules with cities that could set important precedents. Ride Report makes sense of all of that data for cities, starting with assessing compliance, so that both cities and operators have a shared understanding of how micromobility services are being operated and utilized. The company’s software dashboards and APIs make it easy for all stakeholders to exchange and visualize the data that is needed to make important decisions that will make microbility available to all.
WHY: It’s clear that everything from electric scooters to autonomous cars are going to impact the way that citizens move about their cities. Cities have borne the costs of supporting these services and haven’t had access to the data needed to make decisions about where, how and under what constraints these services can operate. Ride Report makes it possible for cities to get the data they need to make decisions about how to enable micromobility services that benefit their citizens and make the cities themselves better places to work and live. If Ride Report it successful it will help cities make decisions about not just these services but also the physical infrastructure of cities themselves.
It’s been a joy to work with William and team so far. If you care about the future of cities and their development, consider joining Ride Report’s team in Portland.