Daimler unloads Portland-based Moovel after two steep layoffs

Daimler has exited the transit technology business in the U.S. by selling off Moovel North America, a Portland-based division that once sought to remake urban transportation.

Monday’s deal follows two rounds of layoffs this year that reduced Moovel’s Portland office from 114 employees to fewer than 50. The new owner is a Canadian company called Strategic Mapping, which says it will retain 25 employees in the Portland office.

Moovel used to be called GlobeSherpa, which was briefly among Portland’s most promising startups. It developed TriMet’s first transit ticketing app and had similar deals with big transportation agencies around the country.

When Daimler bought the business in 2015 it bundled GlobeSherpa with other businesses and put its headquarters in Portland’s Old Town. It sought to use software to guide people to the most efficient option for any given trip, whether that be a car-sharing service, a ride-hailing service like Lyft, a bus or light rail.

Daimler hoped Moovel would help the German automaker hedge its bets for a future when urban residents might own fewer cars. That future hasn’t materialized, though, and car-sharing services Car2Go and ReachNow pulled out of Portland last year.

Since then, transit ridership in Portland and across the country has fallen sharply with the onset of the coronavirus.

Strategic Mapping, Moovel’s new owner, didn’t say how much it paid for Moovel. It did say it will continue providing ticketing apps and “multimodal solutions” in 13 metro areas.