Bestmile has raised $16.5 million in a Series B round along with strengthening its leadership to help accelerate its growth.
The funding round was led by two U.S. firms, Blue Lagoon Capital and TransLink Capital, with the participation of Series A investors Road Ventures, Partech, Groupe ADP, Airbus Ventures, Serena and others.
Blue Lagoon Capital, based in Washington, D.C., is a venture capital firm that invests in a limited number of companies where its principals actively lend their operational expertise. Translink Capital in Palo Alto, Calif., invests in expansion stage technology startups and helps them develop strategic partnerships in Asia. Translink’s investment is from its strategic funds with both SOMPO, one of the largest Japanese insurance companies, and Japan Airlines.
Blue Lagoon partners Rodney Rogers and Kevin Reid have joined the Bestmile board, with Rogers serving as chairman.
“The market has spoken by embracing fleet orchestration technology as critical for real-world mobility service performance,” Rogers said. “This space is currently experiencing significant growth and I am very excited to play a role in the success of Bestmile, a technology I feel is the most advanced, intelligent and comprehensive fleet orchestration platform available today.”
Rogers and Reid, both seasoned technology operators, co-founded enterprise cloud services company Virtustream in 2009 which was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2015 for $1.2 billion and is now part of Dell Technologies.
“Bestmile has pioneered the integration of human-driven and autonomous vehicles, with a richly enabled full services platform that permits fleet operators to practically optimize their assets across all modes of transport,” said Thomas d’Halluin, Airbus ventures managing partner. “At Airbus Ventures we see Bestmile as a key enabler for Urban Air Mobility, with an even brighter future with the proven team of Rogers and Reid on board.”
Bestmile delivers dispatching, routing and ride matching to help make fleets more efficient and to enable cities and service providers to move more people with fewer vehicles. Bestmile customers include public transport operators, transportation network companies, vehicle OEMs and taxi companies offering ride hailing, robotaxi, micro-transit and autonomous shuttle services.
“With these funds and leadership, we are ready to advance our leadership in fleet orchestration,” said Raphael Gindrat, cofounder and CEO of Bestmile. “We are excited to have the financial and operational support we need to ramp up every function of the organization.”
