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Title: Uber rival Sidecar hits dead end, will shut down ride and courier service on Dec. 31 Post by: HCK on December 30, 2015, 09:05:16 am Uber rival Sidecar hits dead end, will shut down ride and courier service on Dec. 31
<article> <section class="page"> <p> The ride’s over for Sidecar, a pioneering ride-sharing service that simply couldn’t compete with Uber and Lyft’s mindshare—nor their massive venture capital-infused warchests, as co-founders Sunil Paul and Jahan Khanna made clear in their farewell post on Medium (https://medium.com/@SunilPaul/so-long-sidecar-and-thanks-74c8a0955064#.qvt5lak5k).</p><p> “We are the innovation leader in ridesharing despite a significant capital disadvantage, continually rolling out new products that set the bar for others to follow,” they wrote.</p><p> No more. Sidecar will stop all deliveries and rides at 2 p.m. on December 31. The closure doesn’t exactly come as a surprise; the company had already shifted focus towards Postmates-style delivery/courier services (http://www.pcworld.com/article/2927632/after-medical-marijuana-sidecar-eyes-alcohol-and-pharmaceuticals.html) in 2015, after its attempt to differentiate from the competition by allowing customers to pick their drivers failed to give said competition any pause. And things were only getting worse; while Lyft’s raised over $1 billion (https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lyft#/entity) and Uber’s near-constant funding rounds have totaled up to more than $10 billion (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-03/uber-raises-funding-at-62-5-valuation), Sidecar raised a mere $35 million (https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/side-cr#/entity) in its lifetime.</p><p class="jumpTag"><a href="/article/3018618/internet/uber-rival-sidecar-hits-dead-end-will-shut-down-ride-and-courier-service-on-dec-31.html#jump">To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here[/url]</p></section></article> Source: Uber rival Sidecar hits dead end, will shut down ride and courier service on Dec. 31 (http://www.macworld.com/article/3018618/internet/uber-rival-sidecar-hits-dead-end-will-shut-down-ride-and-courier-service-on-dec-31.html#tk.rss_all) |