Silicon Valley startups are magical and made of rainbows and are instrumental in changing the world. But they all have to start somewhere, usually with a name that is catchy and grabby for millennials. What is the name of your startup?
Today Google announced it is spinning off its long-running but thus far un-commercialized autonomous car division into a separate company called Waymo. What is Waymo? Hell if I know. Waymo? Waymo.
At any rate, “mobility” startups in recent years, both as independent companies and ones attached to larger entities, include Uber, Lyft, Maven, Beepi, Didi Dache, Wingz, ReachNow, Automatic, Car2Go, and many others I can’t be bothered to look up right now.
Here are the names of all my mobility startups, each of which raised at least $15 billion in initial capital, mostly from Chinese investors and the Russian mob, then folded within six weeks:
- M-Bezzl
- Faintly Automotive
- Semicolon-ai
- Scammm
- VAP3RW3R
- CarHole
- Wastd
- Way-No
- bOFA
- rideme
- Kinja’d
- Trip-N
- br0ke
- Drivetribe
- DÜG (a service where Doug DeMuro comes to your house in his Aston Martin and you pay him to eventually leave)
What is the name of your mobility startup?