Employee mobility budget platform RYDES raises €3.5 million

Berlin based corporate mobility budget platform RYDES has announced a €3.5 million seed round led by leading venture capitalists from the US and Europe with a specialized focus on mobility, Assembly Ventures and Rethink Ventures, in participation with Futury Capital and business angel Jens Krüger, Chief Product Architect at Workday. RYDES is the first mobility platform enabling companies to set up and manage their employees’ entire mobility budget with only a few clicks. 

The effects of the covid pandemic and heightened awareness of climate change implications are catalyzing a global shift in the way people get around. An increasing number of employees are opting for flexible, individual, and sustainable mobility budgets instead of traditional company cars. Europe is leading the way when it comes to multi-modal mobility for employees and European governments are helping to speed adoption through subsidizing rail and public transport for employees and their employers respectively.

Bye endless traffic jams in company car, hello flexible mobility budget

The average Brussels resident is stuck in traffic for 195 hours every year. >

All-in-one mobility budget platform

Berlin based start-up RYDES is tackling this opportunity with the first all-in-one mobility budget platform for employees offering seamless access to any kind of transportation. With RYDES, companies provide their teams with a monthly budget they can use flexibly via the RYDES app instead of having to pay in advance and submit the costs for ride hailing, car subscriptions or public transport individually.

Thanks to the fully automated integration into the company’s own HR, payroll and tax systems, firms save administrative effort, time and money. Employees, on the other hand, can choose at any time how they want to get to their destination: with shared mobility, public transport, rented bikes or cars, or with fuel or charge cards for their own cars.

Additionally, RYDES is the only provider on the market that automatically offsets the resulting carbon footprint for companies via certified climate protection projects.

Europe is paving the way when it comes to multi-modal mobility for employees

“Across Europe, governments are taking steps to promote multi-modal mobility and incentivize its use, including providing subsidies for both employees and employers to utilize rail and public transport. The lessons learned here will be of great importance to other regions in the coming years,” said Jessica Robinson, Partner at Assembly Ventures.

“RYDES is tackling this opportunity with an extremely smart approach that integrates different offerings for multi modal use cases via their integration with corporate HR systems. Their ability to capture detailed mobility, tax, and carbon footprint reporting data in real time, and provide optimized mobility options of individuals, is a game changer,” Robinson continued.