Israeli Startup Optibus Closes $40M Investment Round For Public Transport Platform

Tel Aviv-based public transportation optimization company Optibus raised $40 million in a series B funding round led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from Chinese technology and e-commerce group Alibaba, Pitango Ventures, and Verizon Ventures. The latest financing round brings the company’s total funding raised to $53 million since it was founded in 2014.

Optibus developed a SaaS platform that plans and schedules the movements of vehicles and drivers alike, with detailed insight into how these affect operations, on-time performance and costs. The company uses advanced optimization algorithms and machine learning to help leading transit providers better run mass-transportation.

Founded by CEO Amos Haggiag and CTO Eitan Yanovsky, Optibus provides services to more than 300 cities and currently has offices in San Francisco, London, Tel Aviv, and Düsseldorf.

Amos Haggiag, co-founder and chief executive of Optibus, said cities can save between 3 percent and 20 percent of their overall costs by being more efficient, the Financial Times reported. “The way it’s being done today, there’s a lot of waste,” he added. “You have vehicles running empty, you have drivers taking 30-minute breaks after a short trip,” he was quoted as saying.

Ross Devor, a managing director at Insight, told the Financial Times “So much of the story is that ride-hailing will take away the need for mass public transport, or replace it — I don’t think that’s the case. Millions of people’s daily lives depend on public transport. It needs a revolution.”