Via Transport v Gett

A Cautionary Tale in Execution from the Start Up Nation

This past Sunday, August 17, 2025, Globes reported on two interesting exit transactions for Israeli companies: GETT and VIA Transport.

Both started in the ride-sharing industry.

Each pivoted towards a B2B function.

One is being purchased by a consortium of, mostly, Israel institutions for fraction of their last valuation and the other is preparing for an IPO that will validate their latest raise.  

The contrast between exhibits HOW you execute is as important as where you execute.

But first, let’s set the table and provide you, our readers, some of the basics of each company.

Via's Market Journey

Initial Focus: Via, founded in 2012, began as an on-demand, ride-sharing service. Their core innovation was a proprietary algorithm designed to pool passengers traveling in the same direction (think UberX), making rides more affordable and reducing traffic congestion. The initial focus was a direct-to-consumer app in major urban areas, starting with New York City.

Strategic Pivot: A key turning point for Via was its pivot from a purely consumer-facing service to a "TransitTech" company. The company realized that its technology was more valuable as a B2B solution. It began to partner with cities, public transit agencies, school districts, and corporations, licensing its software to help them create and manage their own on-demand public transportation services. This shift allowed Via to scale without the high operational costs of owning and maintaining a fleet of vehicles.

Current Business Model: Via's current business model is primarily a Software as a Service (SaaS) and technology licensing model. Over 90% of its revenue comes from government clients. The company provides an end-to-end platform for public mobility, including planning and scheduling tools, operational software, and passenger applications. This model is highly scalable and less susceptible to the intense price wars and high driver acquisition costs that plague traditional ride-hailing services.

Financial and Corporate Status: Via has raised substantial funding (1.25B according to Tracxn), with a last known valuation of $3.5 billion in a 2023 series G funding round of $110 million. The company has publicly demonstrated its financial health with growing revenue exceeding $300 million and narrowing losses. Via has made multiple confidential filings for a Wall Street IPO, indicating its ambition to become a publicly traded company. Its acquisition of Citymapper in 2023 further solidified its position in the Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) space.

Seasoned Backers: Initial backers Pitango, 83North, Exor and Expansion Venture Capital are the likely largest winners in the eventual IPO with Exor, 83North and Pitango respectively owning the most shares.  Strategic investors included Shell, Mercedes Benz and Macquarie Group.

Our view:  When the team realized that pooled ride sharing wasn’t going to work out as expected they took their core offering and transformed it to the Business to Government market, which with longer lead times meant greater capital requirements at the outset, but longer term and larger agreements.  

While the B2G market is littered with broken dreams of many companies, having the technology needed to manage mass transit systems and deep pockets helped Via to win more business over time.

Gett's Market Journey

Initial Focus: Gett, founded in 2010, also started as a B2C, app-based ride-hailing platform. Initially known as GetTaxi, it focused on providing reliable and fast on-demand rides, particularly with licensed black cabs in London. Its business model was similar to that of its competitors: connect riders with drivers and take a commission on each fare.

The main differentiator forGett was that it worked with existing taxicab operators to provide them their own app to combat erosion of their markets from other ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft.  In Israel, Uber never really took off because the government required the Uber app to connect with taxi operators and the company was slow to expand coverage beyond the major metropolitan areas of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  As a result, Gett expanded its secondary markets rapidly and users felt that the Uber experience was worse than with Gett.

Gett’s additional market expansion included DACH region countries and Russia. For a time it looked like the Russian market was going to be its largest revenue driver and expansion location.  2019 US Sanctions on Russia essentially killed this business line as Gett wanted to continue with their expansion programs in Western Europe and major US metropolitan areas.  

Strategic Pivot: Eventually as Gett faced fierce competition from global giants like Uber in Western Europe and the US. The company abandoned the concept of trying to compete on a mass consumer scale, and management made a strategic pivot to focus on the corporate ground transportation market. It evolved into a B2B platform and marketplace for corporate travel. Gett's platform aggregates rides from various providers, including its own network of drivers, traditional taxi companies, and other ride-hailing services like Lyft, into a single platform for businesses to manage their ground transportation needs.

Current Business Model: Gett's business model is centered on corporate ground transportation management (GTM). It provides businesses with a platform to book and manage rides, offering features like expense management, centralized booking, and access to a vast network of vetted providers. This focus on the business-to-business market has created a niche for Gett where it can offer more value-added services and maintain stronger margins compared to the low-cost consumer market.

Financial and Corporate Status: According to Tracxn, Gett has also raised significant funding (just over 1B in 14 rounds), including a notable $300 million investment from Volkswagen Group in 2016 and a $115 million raise from undisclosed investors in 2021 at valuation of $1.5 billion . It’s financial journey has been more tumultuous, with a last known valuation of $258 million in early 2023. In 2024, Gett was to be acquired by Pango, a smart mobility platform, for $175 million but this acquisition was stopped by Israel’s Competition Authority and Gett found itself again on its own.

On August 15th, Gett announced that it was going to be purchased by a consortium of investors including Leumi Partners, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, Meitav, Phoenix Financial and Klirmark Capital for $188 million.  Among the sellers will be Vostok New Ventures, Len Blavatnik’s Access and MCI capital.  VNV owned approximately 44% of Gett’s shares at an estimated book value of $209 million.  

Our view: Gett never really received from the shutdown of it’s Russian and Western European operations and chose to create a competitive platform for its existing taxi company users instead of building a platform for local corporate delivery (like Bringg) and suffered the fate of their users as taxi companies became less relevant in the drive share industry.

Via v Gett Journeys at a Glance

Parting Thoughts:

While both Via and Gett started out in the competitive ride-sharing markets in the early 2010s, their pivot was crucial in their long term sustainability.  Both chose to focus their technologies into niche markets, but each chose a market with a different Total Addressable Market and competitive environments.  Via chose an almost blue ocean of public transportation logistics and Gett chose corporate ground transportation which, while it was a large market, competed with the likes of local established direct courier companies in an already red ocean that became even redder when Uber entered the market with its own offering.

It seems that Gett never really got through the shut down of its Russian operations and couldn’t see its core technologies as a true B2B offering that could have provided local courier companies with routing optimization, service delivery and analytics  Conversely these services were provided directly by Via’s offerings to its own niche of public transport companies.