Uber is undoubtedly one of the biggest ride-sharing companies on the planet right now, it has a truly global presence, and from the looks of it, the company won’t be going away anytime soon. One of its rivals has had to go away, Sidecar recently confirmed announced the end of its service merely three years after it was first launched back in 2012, but it appears that General Motors has thrown it a lifeline.
Bloomberg reports that General Motors has acquired Sidecar, well its technology and most of its assets and that it’s also going to employ 20 people from the Sidecar team including co-founder and CTO Jahan Khanna. Co-founder and CEO Sunil Paul is not going to join the car maker.
The companies have not confirmed how much money has changed hands as a result of this transaction, a person familiar with the matter cited in the report claims that the amount is slightly less than $39 million.
General Motors is throwing a lot of money around to get the message out there that it wants to be at the forefront of the self-driving car meets ride-sharing service revolution. It recently invested $500 million in Lyft for the express purpose of making self-driving cars and GM President Daniel Ammann has already hinted at what the fruits of this partnership could look like.
A spokesman for GM confirmed to the scribe that Sidecar’s assets and employees will support its partnership with Lyft aside from proving to be helpful to some other projects at the car manufacturer.
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