Cities are amazing. They’re hotbeds of innovation, gardens of democracy, bulwarks of tolerance. When you’re neighbours with millions of people, it’s hard to go a day without one delighting you with a crazy discovery, a radical point of view, or their simple joie de vivre.

Connecting neighbourhoods and the people within them is what makes our cities tick. And facilitating those connections is what gives our company purpose.

Which is why we’re extra-pleased to announce a $5M Series A for our company Transit. Accel is leading the round, backed by Accomplice, Real Ventures and the Business Development Bank of Canada. (Up here in Canada, we call it a Series Eh. 🇨🇦👌)

This new funding won’t just help us build a better app for our users — it’ll give them front row seats for the next urban revolution.

Shared rides = less cars, more space. 🌚

What is Transit

At Transit we’re tackling every aspect of the urban transportation experience. From maps to trip planning to real-time data and everything in between.

In the 130+ cities we now support, we show you every nearby transit line, instantly — no taps required. We’ve simplified complex transit networks with the sexiest transit maps ever. We’ve eliminated transit anxiety by creating GO, the world’s first real-time transit GPS. We’re creating real-time transit data that nobody else has. And we’re integrating all the mobility services in your neighbourhood so you can make quick, informed decisions on the best way to get from a-to-b.

Millions of our users are taking billions of trips across every mode — whether that means transit, bikeshare, carshare, or rideshare. We’re now the official app of some of North America’s biggest transit agencies. And we’re the most popular (unofficial) app for most of the others. Like New York City, where more people will use our app today than request an Uber.

So no, we’re not here to build you your own self-driving car. We’re building something better: a world where you don’t need one.

Sorry Elon.

The days where everyone had their own car are soon going to feel like a baffling historical faux-pas. From city to city, we’re making the transition away from car dependence more palatable for millions of people. Our timing couldn’t be better. The urban commute is being balkanized.

Between bikesharing, carsharing, ridesharing and the looming spectre of shared autonomous vehicles (AVs) — owning a car will soon make as much sense as owning your own encyclopedia or patch of potatoes.

No longer monopolized by a single machine, transportation is being unbundled into dozens of different service providers. Each one wants to be king of its own little kingdom. Bikeshare. Carshare. Rideshare. Dang.

Well we’re not a kingdom.

We’re a commonwealth. With our bikeshare, carshare, rideshare and (soon) shared AV integrations, Transit makes it easy for millions of people to discover all the services in their neighbourhood. To compare ETAs across modes. To connect between them for more efficient trips.

We expect these services to get even more popular — with everyone from car2go and Zipcar to Google and Apple to Citibike and BIXI to Uber and Lyft to Tesla and Toyota competing to get you from a-to-b with their vehicles.

But while the future city will abound with competing services, the crown jewel will remain mass transit. Because moving large quantities of people quickly — and using a limited amount of space — is not just the sanest and most efficient way forward for our cities. Geometrically, it’s the only way.