Web-Based Carpooling Startups

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Most ride-share providers also offer enterprise customers mobile apps related to their services. Goose Networks lets enterprise members enroll in "real-time ride-sharing," a text-message service for finding last-minute carpool partners. (Stayed late for a meeting and missed your ride? As you head to the nearest transit stop, send a single SMS to the pool asking for one. It's a little like Twitter or Dodgeball. As the BlackBerry—and iPhone—equipped workforce grows, so too will the demand for such on-the-go features. Amol Brahme, co-founder of iCarpool.com (which offers both a free Web widget and hosted enterprise services), says enterprise customers are increasingly requesting to add mobile services to their package already.

So far businesses are buying it, but will investors step up?

Traffic-Clogged Roads

NuRide is currently funded through an undisclosed amount of angel investment, and the company has been cash-flow positive for the last three years, according to Steele. Lump-sum government contracts aimed at reducing demand for roadways have provided the cash flow necessary to get started. But NuRide, which also offers a point-based reward system modeled on the well-funded RecycleBank, is angling to raise a venture round sometime over the next year as well, for as little as $5 million and as much as $30 million, depending on how quickly investors think the company can expand its geographic reach.

Goose Networks is boot-strapped but is currently raising a $250,000 angel round to support its engineering staff. CEO Crissman says he has some milestones in mind, and if there's sufficient "evidence" of the market's potential—a revival of the defunded Best Workplaces for Commuters awards and continued growth in companies offering private shuttles, for example—Goose could pursue an institutional round in 2009.

Investment in the area is still small, according to Crissman, because investors aren't sold on the potential. But that will change as the competition for room on the roadways increases, even if gas prices drop. Commute time, not cost, will keep enterprise customers engaged. Four-fifths of the companies interested in Goose Networks' service cite employee retention and recruitment as reasons for adding a ride-share service. Over the past 40 years, the miles of highway grew by 6%, while the number of miles traveled on those roads increased by 194%, according to the National Surface Transportation Commission. "Demand is going to increase while resources are largely fixed," Crissman says. "We can't just build our way out of congestion."

Provided by GigaOm—