The Lightning Pitch: (Ticket to) PapaRide

Company: PapaRide

Headquarters: Montreal, Quebec

Founding Team: CEO, Ayoub Moutiya, the Chief techie, Nilesh Savani and the iOS developer, Jignesh Rajodiya.

Why we like it. Because driving around in circles on a Monday morning searching for a parking spot is the wakeup call you need. Or let’s take it one step further. It’s Sunday and your car won’t start at all. That’s one week at the mechanics. Normally a great excuse not to make it to work but it’s the week the CEO comes to visit, so you’ll just have to be there.

The PapaRide Network is a sharing platform that can gets you out of these sticky situations by giving you everything you need for your next ride.  

You have four options -you can rent out your car or bike, you can find a car or bike to rent, you can pre-book a parking spot or you can find someone travelling in the same direction as you and carpool.

All you need to do is sign up, book what you want to rent, whether that’s a bike, car or parking spot, and drive safely. Just don’t forget to return the car to the owner with at least a quarter of a tank.

Now you might be thinking -hang on, isn’t this like another Uber app? One app’s enough. But it’s not. It’s an epic mash of Uber, Bixi, Blablacar and Montreal Parking with a few tweaks -you can go long distances cheaply or you can rent the car to drive yourself. You don’t need a million little apps downloaded on your phone, just the one will do the trick.

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Even though we think that technology is isolating us from everyone else, it’s not. It’s just bringing us closer together. On one hand you should be less angry at the world. If the app goes to plan, there’ll be less traffic on the road. And on the other hand trust in society is restored when someone saves your day and rents out their vehicle.

Moutiya specifies that this is a new more efficient method of collaborative transportation that can help reduce the amount of vehicles on the road. “We see, the solutions currently in place to improve the state of urban congestion are far from perfect. What I propose is to help reduce the number of vehicles on our roads, with a group of services that are complementary to each other,” said Mouliya.

Jacinta Spies