Tag: last mile

• Electric scooter startup Lime raises $310 million series D round

  Earlier this month it was announced that the on-demand electric scooter and bike startup, Lime, had closed a $310 million series D round. This values the 18-month old company at around $2.4 billion and brings its total raise to $867.1 million. For comparison, Bird — its main competitor — has raised around $400 million.

  These numbers should tell you about the kind of growth that the “micromobility” startup is seeing. They are now in 15 countries and its riders have taken over 34 million trips. In the last 7 months alone, the company reports that it has seen a 5.5x increase in ridership. They are seen as an affordable last-mile solution. Supposedly 1/3 of its users report an income of less than $50,000 per year.

  Lime entered the Canadian market last fall via Waterloo. They have yet to expand anywhere else, though I suspect we’ll see them in Toronto this spring/summer. One of the barriers is that their scooters (with airless tires) aren’t equipped to deal with snow, so they currently pack them up during the winter months.

  This is in addition to the regulatory challenges they are facing in cities all around the world. But like Uber, I am sure there is a compromise to be had.

  2019.02.25

• Going dockless

  A couple of months ago I wrote about Bird, the electric scooter sharing company that is trying to solve the last-mile problem. They are expanding across the US and it is seemingly wildly popular.

  But its popularity is also leading some people to call them a public nuisance. Perhaps the biggest contributor to that is the fact that the system is dockless. That is, when you get to your destination you can park the Bird wherever you want.

  That’s obviously a great feature for users (who wants to look around for a docking station?), but it’s also causing a proliferation of “Bird litter” in the cities and neighborhoods where they are widely used. 

  I am sure this will eventually get resolved.

  The other thing about going dockless is that you now have a charging problem. Where and when do these scooters get charged and by whom? Bird solves this problem through decentralized contract workers called “Bird hunters.”

  You register to be one and then Bird pays you $5 to $20 for every scooter charged, depending on how difficult the Bird is to find. And as you can expect, these scooters are getting left all over the place.

  I thought this was a clever solution. And apparently it is popular with high school students looking to earn extra cash. Some are making several hundred dollars a day by spending their evenings picking up and dropping off Birds.

  2018.05.22

• New, mini, electric skateboard

  

  Boosted — which is a California-based company that makes electric skateboards — has just released a new smaller and more affordable version called the Mini S.

  Casey Neistat — who helped popularize the original models through his wildly successful YouTube channel — recently vlogged about it and it ended up crashing their website. That’s how things work these days.

  Now, this new version is still USD 750 (so CAD 1,000), but it is significantly less than their other, bigger, models.

  The Mini S goes up to 18 mph and lasts for about 7 miles (optional extended range battery available). So it’s perfect for short jaunts around the city and as a solution to that pesky last mile problem. 

  I am seriously considering getting one for my short commute to the office. That way I’m not breaking a sweat in my suit. But $1,000 remains an awful lot for a skateboard.

  What do you think?

  Image: Casey Neistat via Boosted

  2018.04.20

• Online shopping and “last mile” real estate

  

  The Globe and Mail recently published an excellent article on “how e-commerce is driving a real estate revolution.” This is a topic that I’m very interested in: how online manifests itself offline.

  Not surprisingly, the article talks a lot about Amazon, including their 4th warehouse in the Greater Toronto Area, which is an 850,000 square foot facility in Brampton equipped with 350-pound robots (8050 Heritage Road).

  The first thing I did after reading the article was figure out the location of all of Amazon’s fulfillment centers in the GTA. Amazon doesn’t seem to publish this. But according to TaxJar, they are here (I mapped out the addresses):

  

  There are two in Brampton at the precise location where Hwy 407 (toll route) and Hwy 401 meet. The other three are distributed along Hwy 401 in Milton and in Mississauga.

  Now let’s get back to that Globe and Mail article:

  – In 6 years, Amazon has leased over 2 million square feet of warehouse space in Canada.

  – Toronto is the third largest warehouse market in North America. It represents 43% of Canada’s total inventory.

  – Average net rents have increased 9.7% over the past year and vacancy rates have dropped to 2.7% (CBRE data). In Vancouver, those same numbers are 5.1% and 3%, respectively.

  – Online shopping is thought to account for about 6.5% of all retail sales in Canada. But in Toronto, 23% of all industrial space is already e-commerce-related (CBRE data, again).

  – CBRE believes that every $1 billion in new online sales per year requires an additional 1.25 million square feet of warehouse space. 

  – Based on online sales projections, Canada needs another 27.5 million square feet of industrial space over the next 5 years. We don’t have that much space in the pipeline.

  – Clear heights are increasing for stacking purposes. Amazon’s new Brampton facility is 45 feet tall / 4 floors. 10 years ago new warehouses were 26 feet tall.

  – Average sale price of warehouses in the GTA has gone from $119.35 psf to $142.19 psf over the last year.

  Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the article is the discussion around “last mile” distribution hubs. These are fulfillment centers located closer to the city, which are used to offer shorter delivery times: 

  “…instead of having inventory stored for days or months, these fulfilment centres will turn over their inventory in one day, sometimes twice a day.”

  This is something that I addressed in my recent presentation about the “mall of the future” at B+H’s retail design charrette. Where do these physical distribution centers want to be as online sales continue to grow and delivery times continue to compress? Where’s the future growth?

  According to this article, it’s going to be in “last mile” fulfillment real estate – relatively smaller spaces that are located very close or directly in the city center.

  Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

  2017.07.23