Le magazine Karos :
l'actualité du covoiturage et de l'application

This is a very big step for Karos! The MACIF and the European Commission are investing in Karos, with a 7-million-euro fundraising. These funds will enable us to begin our European, starting with a partnership in Denmark.

We are excited to share this news, which demonstrates that carpooling for daily commuting is a sustainable mobility solution for the future.

A new round of financing of 7 million euros

It's official: we have completed a €7 million financing round with Macif, and the European Commission's EIC Fund!

Macif's commitment, via its VC Fund Macif Innovation, reflects the willingness of a major player for French people, with 5.5 million members, to support forward-looking companies with impactful projects, such as Karos.

"Macif is proud to support the deployment of Karos, thus contributing to the development of a new kinf of shared transport that makes daily commuting easier for people while limiting the ecological impact," says Erwann Bertheleme, Director of Macif Innovation.

The European Commission has chosen Karos to make its second investment in France, via the EIC Accelerator programme. The objective of this programme is to accelerate the rise of the most promising technologies. Supporting these new technologies is also a lever to address the major challenges of the European Union. With Karos, we are actively participating in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are very pleased to support Karos through the EIC Fund to make daily mobility habits evolve. This fundraising will help Karos to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas, and to accelerate the transition to sustainable mobility in cities" said Kerstin Bock, member of the EIC Fund Committee.

Furthermore, we are very grateful that our historical investors have renewed their support. The investment funds Aster, Eiffel Investment Group and Aglaé Ventures are still contributing to our development, which confirms the positive growth of Karos.

On the way to Europe with a first contract in Denmark

Since our creation, we have proven the efficiency of our concept with more than 400,000 users and more than 150 corporate and local authority clients in France.

With the support of the European Commission, it is time for us to move forward with our expansion abroad.

And it' s starting now! We have signed our first major contract with FDM to deploy our know-how in Denmark. Founded in 1909, FDM is the Danish motorists' association. The partnership aims at providing all our technological and methodological services to individuals, employers and local authorities under the local brand Ta'Med.

"We are proud that FDM have the opportunity to play a leading role in the development of carpooling. With this new collaboration, FDM brings French experience and technology to the Danes. For the benefit of the Danish society," says Thomas Møller Thomsen, CEO of FDM.

Finally, we would like to thank you. This fundraising is a great step forward for us and confirms that our daily work is relevant. We would like to thank all the people who have supported us, but also our users for their encouragement.

Today, I have the great pleasure to chat with Matthew Baldwin, Deputy Director-General at the EU commission’s DG Move. 

 In this short interview we’ll discuss Europe’s leadership and ambitions when it comes to sustainable mobility, the role of government’s policies and incentives to change behaviors, and specific solutions for suburban mobility.

JR: Hello Matthew, could you briefly tell us about the role of the EU Commission's DG MOVE? 

MB: DG Move is the European Commission’s transport and mobility department, covering all the different modes of transport, from aviation through road, maritime and of course urban mobility. We also manage big projects like the trans-european networks, and invest a large part of our budget in better connecting Europe.

We also propose all legislation at the European level, which is later legislated through by the Council and the European Parliament. 

JR: Do you think Europe is leading the way for sustainable mobility? 

 MB: Yes, in my opinion Europe is leading the way in sustainable mobility. We face this big existential crisis of climate change and Europe has pledged to become climate neutral by 2050. Moreover as part of the European Green Deal (#EUGreenDeal), we want to reduce our emissions by 55% by 2030, which is a tough but essential goal.

When we look at the overall pattern of greenhouse gas emissions, we see that transport is responsible for one quarter of the emissions. It's the only sector which is growing. So we need to act. But at the same time, we need to recognise  that mobility is something that has revolutionized our working and our personal lives, and brought tremendous progress. Our goal is to make mobility more sustainable, not to curb mobility. So the Commission has come forward with a new sustainable and smart  mobility strategy in 2019. In a nutshell it is to ensure that all modes are sustainable, and to ensure – in the shorter term - that sustainable alternatives are available, and properly incentivised. 

JR: What about France?

 MB: First, France has had strong personal ownership of the climate change agenda by the famous Paris accords of 2015. This historic meeting of the COP brought major breakthroughs, and we as the EU now have to respond to that – for example, we now have a European climate law which binds each Member States to meet this overall 55% target.   France has played a major leading role in developing the overall European plan, and will continue to do so as I President of the EU Council in the first half of 2022.

JR : Our mobility has strong negative externalities on the ecosystem (pollution, congestion, wasted time, urban sprawl...). Do you think new technologies are powerful enough to offset this impact in the upcoming years? or will Europeans have to change their habits, and the way they move? 

MB: We all face and see these externalities in our daily lives, but what we often fail to realize is the order of magnitude of their cost: between 600€Bn and 1 trillion euro a year just for the European Union. We have pledged to address them in our new mobility strategy, and we need to start now, with strong measures. The good news is that some policy solutions can reduce all of those externalities. For example if we reduce our dependence on conventionally-fuelled, privately owned cars in cities, we not only start to tackle climate change, but we reduce congestion, the number of deaths and injuries from road crashes, we improve our air quality and so on… one policy can deliver on multiple objectives.

I strongly believe that technology will be a key element to foster this change. We are moving into an era of alternatively fuelled cars, and the EU is addressing this with not just new emission standards for car fleets, but a major roll out of alternative fuel recharging points. Yet let’s also keep in mind that if we swap all our conventionally fuelled cars for EV, we are not solving the congestion problem! Green traffic jams are still traffic jams.   

We need to incentivize the change of behavior by changing the true cost of mobility, and changing the pattern of mobility especially in our cities. If we can make it safer and more attractive to ride bikes in urban areas, for example, more people will cycle. If we build bike lanes, studies show that the modal share of bikes will sharply increase. If we can connect public transportation with active mobility such as walking and cycling, we build new routes for people to connect and move around. 

JR: Urban mobility is one everyone's lips; every day a new mobility provider pops up for city centers. Yet, hundreds of millions of Europeans in suburban and rural areas still have no option beside using their personal car. How can we improve suburban mobility?

 MB: If we just focus on cities for our sustainable mobility, we won’t achieve the results we aim for. Copenhagen, Brussels and most European cities face a large part of their traffic coming from outside of the city. What I like to point out is that these solo drivers often have no choice, and merely respond to the system and the mobility options that we offer them. 

We need to think very creatively if we want to reduce the impact of cars and the number of cars in our cities. Carpooling is obviously a great solution, and reserved lanes have been in place for several years in countries like the US. Yet it’s not the only solution. I think we have to see beyond that, for example much stronger parking & ride facilities at the entrance of towns, with efficient intermodality solutions provided (e-bikes, public transport). There is no one and only solution. At the European level, we strive to set the right framework, but in the end we’ll rely on member states and local municipalities to implement the right policies, and make mobility more sustainable. 

From a french perspective, when we think about danish mobility, we first think about bikes. Yet, beyond city centers and copenhagen in particular, most danes use cars for both commuting and leisure. Actually, 82% of the total distance travelled by danes every year is by personal car, and that figure keeps growing. 

That was the key reason why FDM, the Danish car club, decided to launch a carpooling project and chose Karos technology to power it. Today, we met Clément Guasco, Digital Business Developer at FDM to hear more about their goal with carpooling.

Joachim: Hello Clément, outside of Denmark, not everyone is familiar with FDM. Can you walk us through FDM’s mission and history?

Clément : FDM (Forenede Danske Motorejere), which stands for Federation of Danish Car-owners was founded in the early 20th century. At first, FDM was a grassroots movement, which started as a reaction to a new Danish law that forbade car owners to drive on secondary roads. Since then, FDM developed into an association that promotes the interest of all car owners. Today, we help our members buy, insure, sell or repair their cars, and provide them with a wide range of services.

J: Can you name some examples?

C: First, we share our knowledge with the car owners in the media. Our main magazine, Motor, is more than 100 years old. You can find articles about technical and safety tests we’ve done on automobiles, product reviews, information on new car models, and more.

We also offer technical and legal support through our hotline, which cover purchase, parking, insurance or repair questions. We also offer many services like insurance, road assistance, travel agency, driving courses and technical tests. 

Finally, as we are also a political organization, we work on informing drivers about changes in the car ecosystem and we give opinions on ongoing regulations regarding road safety, parking, taxation, to name a few. Promoting the switch to electric cars is one of our main focuses at the moment. 

J: Great, and why did you choose to expand to carpooling?

C: Our carpooling offering is called Ta’Med! (which can be translated as “come with!”). We launched it to target two key problems of car mobility: congestion and CO2 emissions. The majority of Danes go to work by car and daily commuting around cities is responsible for a large amount of CO2 emissions and pollution, as well as congestion. We consider this a societal issue that affects everyone, including our hundred of thousands of members. We know that carpooling has the potential to reduce the number of cars on the road and tackle this issue: that’s why we decided to give it a go!

J: What’s the difference between Ta’Med and traditional carpool platforms?

C: When people think of carpooling, they talk about a driver matching with a passenger and the passenger paying the driver for the service, like Blablacar or GoMore.

The carpooling we address, for daily commuting, benefits not only the passenger and drivers, but also companies, public authorities and society as a whole. Our strategy is to involve them in making carpooling a success. That is precisely why we partnered with Karos, whose product is not only an app for users, but a platform to promote carpooling for companies and local authorities. If you want to have a strong impact on pollution by promoting carpooling, you need employers, who promote the service to their employees, you need public transport authorities that finance and promote carpooling, and of course, you need a powerful tech platform to match users. 

J: Why and how did you choose Karos ?

C: We’ve made an extensive benchmark, and studied potential partners from India, Australia, USA and Europe. Karos had the best fit in terms of vision and product, and experience with making people carpool through millions of trips. 
Karos’ distinctive feature was its integration with public transportation, which was already rolled out in several regions in France. Its footprint in France with sizablet partners was also reassuring as we needed a strong provider with extended references. Carpooling for daily commute is no easy task, and we wanted to benefit from their experience.

Finally, the fact that Karos was a well-funded scale-up with 100% focus on carpooling gave us a guarantee that the project would be a priority for them, and that they would be a reliable partner on the long term.

Looking back at the process, it’s fair to say it was quite an obvious choice.

J: How did Karos adapt its platform to your needs? 

C: First step was obviously to translate the app and the SaaS platform in danish. But beyond translation, there was a regulatory issue, as European law is not evenly interpreted across countries. For instance, protection of consumer’s online data is stricter in Denmark. Nevertheless, Karos managed to deliver the service on time and the app is now live in Denmark.

Karos Team has done a good job in establishing a platform that will facilitate future launches in other European countries.

J: What are your ambitions ? 

C: We are launching the service with our first communities and companies during the fall 2021, and we will run several activations campaigns. After that, we will work on rolling out Ta’Med program out to all companies and public transport authorities in Denmark. Ambitions are high, though the legal framework and incentives for carpooling is not as strong in Denmark as in France. We are pursuing our efforts to convince the government to promote carpooling more extensively by allowing PTA to financially support carpooling and adapting tax regulations. France is a benchmark for many European countries when it comes to carpooling.
Denmark may have an image of a “bike land”, but you have to bear in mind that the number of kilometers driven by car has expanded over the last few years, and still makes up 82% of total kilometers driven! 

Because of this, CO2-emissions and congestion are steadily increasing. Carpooling and car sharing are more necessary than ever! This is Ta’Med’s mission, and hopefully we’ll transform danish mobility for the better.