This Rideshare Startup Is Seeing ‘Explosive Growth’ as the Nation Faces a Shortage of Bus Drivers

Harri Weber

Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.

HopSkipDrive
HopSkipDrive

Exactly one year after laying off 60 people due to the pandemic, youth transportation startup HopSkipDrive announced today that it's raised $25 million in new funding, its largest round to date.


The Series C cash infusion comes from four firms: Energy Impact Partners, Keyframe Capital, FirstMark Capital and 1776 Ventures.

HopSkipDrive plans to use the new funds toward vehicle electrification and to "continue reshaping school transportation." Materially, that means it plans to launch in 30 new markets — up from 16.

"We are coming out of COVID, which was a pretty difficult year, as most school districts across the country were closed," said co-founder and CEO Joanna McFarland. "But by this spring we were seeing pretty explosive growth as districts were coming back and realizing they needed us more than ever."

With the latest funding round, Energy Impact Partners Principal Cassie Bowe is joining HopSkipDrive's board, along with Zillow public policy executive Loni Mahanta. The additions mean that 60% of HopSkipDrive's board members are women, a rare ratio among private and public firms alike.

As for the company's environmental footprint, HopSkipDrive says 19% of the vehicles on its platform today are either hybrid or electric, and in some markets that figure is higher. In Seattle, "over 40% of HopSkipDrive CareDriver vehicles are Hybrid or EV," the company says.

Going forward, the startup pledges to "help thousands of CareDrivers transition to EVs and expand its partnerships with transportation providers that offer electric vans and buses." dot.LA has reached out to HopSkipDrive for more information on its efforts to slash emissions.

The startup is often billed as "Uber for kids," but HopSkipDrive has rejected that moniker, arguing that it has "completely different — and far more rigorous — safety technology and processes." Because it's focused on transporting minors, HopSkipDrive says it puts "additional driver vetting processes into place — for one, fingerprint-based background checks."

HopSkipDrive also requires drivers to pass record checks and car inspections, and have five years of caregiving experience.

Regardless of differences, the startup shares some traits with Uber, including a knack for disruption.

The six-year-old firm transports students in partnership with more than 300 schools, districts and government agencies, positioning itself as an answer to the nationwide bus driver shortage that's been exacerbated by the coronavirus. But the rise of HopSkipDrive and similar ventures has also sparked discontent among union members, who raised concerns about child safety and potential job losses in a recent Bloomberg report.

In response, McFarland argues HopSkipDrive complements the nation's existing bus system.

"You don't need a 72-passenger bus for every single trip to and from school, and you don't have enough drivers for those 72-passenger buses, anyway." McFarland adds, "I don't think we are taking union jobs. I think the bus driver industry can't fill the jobs. We see ourselves as a compliment both to school districts and to the school bus contractors to solve these problems of educational access, and it's really about getting kids to school."

On safety, McFarland pointed to HopSkipDrive's in-house safety report. The most recent report, published in September 2020, concluded that 99.584% of rides between 2018 and 2019 "were completed without any type of safety-related issue."

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How the 'Thrift Haul' Boosted Secondhand Ecommerce Platforms

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
How the 'Thrift Haul' Boosted Secondhand Ecommerce Platforms
Evan Xie

If you can believe it, it’s been more than a decade since rapper Macklemore extolled the virtues of thrift shopping in a viral music video. But while scouring the ranks of vintage clothing stores looking for the ultimate come-up may have waned in popularity since 2012, the online version of this activity is apparently thriving.

According to a new trend story from CNBC, interest in “reselling” platforms like Etsy-owned Depop and Poshmark has exploded in the years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. In an article that spends a frankly surprising amount of time focused on sellers receiving death threats before concluding that they’re “not the norm,” the network cites the usual belt-tightening ecommerce suspects – housebound individuals doing more of their shopping online coupled with inflation woes and recession fears – as the causes behind the uptick.

As for data, there’s a survey from Depop themselves, finding that 53% of respondents in the UK are more inclined to shop secondhand as living costs continue to rise. Additional research from Advance Market Analytics confirms the trend, citing not just increased demand for cheap clothes but the pressing need for a sustainable alternative to recycling clothing materials at its core.

The major popularity of “thrift haul” videos across social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok has also boosted the visibility of vintage clothes shopping and hunting for buried treasures. Teenage TikToker Jacklyn Wells scores millions of views on her thrift haul videos, only to get routinely mass-accused of greed for ratching up the Depop resell prices for her coolest finds and discoveries. Nonetheless, viral clips like Wells’ have helped to embed secondhand shopping apps more generally within online fashion culture. Fashion and beauty magazine Hunger now features a regular list of the hottest items on the re-sale market, with a focus on how to use them to recreate hot runway looks.

As with a lot of consumer and technology trends, the sudden surge of interest in second-hand clothing retailers was only partly organic. According to The Drum, ecommerce apps Vinted, eBay, and Depop have collectively spent around $120 million on advertising throughout the last few years, promoting the recent vintage shopping boom and helping to normalize second-hand shopping. This includes conventional advertising, of course, but also deals with online influencers to post content like “thrift haul” videos, along with shoutouts for where to track down the best finds.

Reselling platforms have naturally responded to the increase in visibility with new features (as well as a predictable hike in transaction fees). Poshmark recently introduced livestreamed “Posh Shows” during which sellers can host auctions or provide deeper insight into their inventory. Depop, meanwhile, has introduced a “Make Offer” option to fully integrate the bartering and negotiation process into the app, rather than forcing buyers and sellers to text or Direct Message one another elsewhere. (The platform formerly had a comments section on product pages, but shut this option down after finding that it led to arguments, and wasn’t particularly helpful in making purchase decisions.)

Now that it’s clear there’s money to be made in online thrift stores, larger and more established brands and retailers are also pushing their way into the space. H&M and Target have both partnered with online thrift store ThredUp on featured collections of previously-worn clothing. A new “curated” resale collection from Tommy Hilfiger – featuring minorly damaged items that were returned to its retail stores – was developed and promoted through a partnership with Depop, which has also teamed with Kellogg’s on a line of Pop-Tarts-inspired wear. J.Crew is even bringing back its classic ‘80s Rollneck Sweater in a nod to the renewed interest in all things vintage.

Still, with any surge of popularity and visibility, there must also come an accompanying backlash. In a sharp editorial this week for Arizona University’s Daily Wildcat, thrift shopping enthusiast Luke Lawson makes the case that sites like Depop are “gentrifying fashion,” stripping communities of local thrift stores that provide a valuable public service, particularly for members of low-income communities. As well, UK tabloids are routinely filled with secondhand shopping horror stories these days, another evidence point as to their increased visibility among British consumers specifically, not to mention the general dangers of buying personal items from strangers you met over the internet.

How to Startup: Mission Acquisition

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

How to Startup: Mission Acquisition

Numbers don’t lie, but often they don’t tell the whole story. If you look at the facts and figures alone, launching a startup seems like a daunting enterprise. It seems like a miracle anyone makes it out the other side.

  • 90% of startups around the world fail.
  • On average, it takes startups 2-3 years to turn a profit. (Venture funded startups take far longer.)
  • Post-seed round, fewer than 10% of startups go on to successfully raise a Series A investment.
  • Less than 1% of startups go public.
  • A startup only has a .00006% chance of becoming a unicorn.

Ouch.

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From The Vault: VC Legend Bill Gurley On Startups, Venture Capital and Scaling

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

Bill Gurley in a blue suit
Bill Gurley

This interview was originally published on December of 2020, and was recorded at the inaugural dot.LA Summit held October 27th & 28th.

One of my longtime favorite episodes of Office Hours was a few years ago when famed venture capitalist Bill Gurley and I talked about marketplace-based companies, how work-from-home will continue to accelerate business opportunities and his thoughts on big tech and antitrust.

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