Montreal-based Transit app raises $5 million with mission to make car ownership obsolete

Montreal-based Transit has raised $5 million in a round led by Accel Partners. Accomplice, Real Ventures, and BDC also joined the round.

While the company plans to use the funding to invest in product development, Transit outlined its commitment to ushering in “the next urban revolution” in a Medium post.

Transit’s platform taps into many aspects of the transportation experience, including maps, trip planning, and a real-time GPS. Users can also book ride-hailing services, book carshare services, and buy bikeshare passes. The company is currently functional in over 130 cities, and says it has “millions” of active users and facilitates billions of riders.

“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,” the post reads.

The company outlined its commitment to get people moving away from cars, and make public transporation more palatable. “When even small cities like Portland are projected to have 3.6 million people by 2050, any urban planning strategy that prioritizes low-occupant vehicles — robot-driven or not — will eventually be crippled by traffic,”

The company raised a $2.4 million seed round in September 2016 to improve the precision of its data.

“For decades we’ve let our cities become less neighbourly, less walkable, less healthy, and liveable. All for the sake of quick and convenient transportation,” the company says. “But today’s transportation is neither quick nor convenient. Cars have failed to deliver on their promise. Now, they’re getting kicked out of town.”

This story was originally published on BetaKit.