Month: June 2019

Jumia held its first post-IPO earnings call and weathered a short-sell assault in May, with Wall Street showing confidence in Pan-African e-commerce company.

On the numbers, key takeaways were that Jumia’s Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) — the total amount of goods sold over the period — grew by 58 percent to €240 million. Marketplace revenue grew 102 percent to €16 million, and gross profits as a percentage of GMV grew by 6.5 percent in Q1 2019.

Overall, Jumia’s operating losses for the period widened to €45.4 million from €34.3 and negative EBITDA increased to €39.5 million from €30.2.

So the startup’s still losing money — see the big losses reported in the IPO filing — but is improving its ability to earn.

CEO Sacha Poignonnec also shared a longer-term revenue strategy on Jumia’s Q1 earnings call. The startup plans to convert its JumiaPay and Jumia Logistics capabilities to standalone services across Africa.

Founded in Lagos in 2012, the company currently operates multiple online verticals in 14 African countries — from B2C consumer retail to travel bookings.

For Jumia, going public has been an up and down affair. After becoming the first tech startup operating in Africa to list on a major exchange (the NYSE in April), the company saw its share rise 70 percent after listing on the NYSE in April at $14.50.

Then in May, Jumia’s stock tumbled when it came under assault from a short-seller Andrew Left, who accused the company of fraud. On the earnings call the startup’s CEO responded to the short-seller claims saying, “Jumia stands by our prospectus and audited financials…and will not be distracted by those who look…to profit at our expense.” Poignonnec later took to media and refuted claims as “market rumors rather than facts.”

Citibank analyst Andrew Howell published his own response, much of it discrediting the Citron Research.

Overall, Wall Street seemed confident in Jumia’s post-IPO results and outreach, with Raymond James and Berenberg upgrading their Jumia stock recommendations to buy-equivalent ratings. Jumia’s stock has remained stable since, closing at $25.81 Monday.

When it comes to e-commerce in Africa, Jumia may face stiffer competition from DHL. The shipping giant teamed up with MallforAfrica to expand its Africa eShop app to 20 countries in May.

DHL went live with the digital retail app in April, bringing more than 200 U.S. and U.K. sellers — from Neiman Marcus to Carters — online to African consumers.

Africa eShop operates using startup MallforAfrica.com’s white label fulfillment service, Link Commerce.

There’s a competitive e-commerce scenario brewing between the two platforms. DHL Africa eShop touts itself as “Africa’s Largest Online Shopping Platform.” Jumia said, “We believe that our platform is the largest e-commerce marketplace in Africa,” in its SEC F-1 filing.

DHL’s partner for the new app, MallforAfrica, brings experience collaborating with a number of big-name retailers, including Macy’s and Best Buy. MFA’s payment and delivery system serves as a digital broker and logistics manager for big-name retailers to sell goods in Africa.

As for the global e-commerce names, Alibaba has talked about Africa expansion, but for the moment has not entered in full.

Amazon offers limited e-commerce sales on the continent, but more notably, has started offering AWS services in Africa.

With Jumia’s commitment to offer its logistics and payments capabilities as services, DHL and MallforAfrica could be on a footing to compete Jumia. All three could also find themselves either competing (or working with) big e-commerce names entering Africa.

There’s been a lot of market movement in Africa’s motorcycle ride-hail space over the last year-plus. Uber  began offering a two-wheel transit option in East Africa in 2018, around the same time Bolt (previously Taxify) started motorcycle taxi service in Kenya.

Uganda-based motorcycle ride-hail company SafeBoda moved into Kenya in 2018 and last month raised a Series B round of an undisclosed amount on plans to further expand into in East Africa and Nigeria.

In Lagos, there’s already motorcycle ride-hail company Gokada, which raised a $5.3 million Series A round in May.

Gokada  has trained and on-boarded more than 1,000 motorcycles and their pilots on its app that connects commuters to moto-taxis and DOT– approved helmets.

The startup has completed nearly 1 million rides since it was co-founded in 2018 by Fahim Saleh  — a Bangladeshi entrepreneur. Gokada will use the financing to increase its fleet and ride volume, while developing a network to offer goods and services to its drivers, Saleh told TechCrunch in this exclusive.

Gokada differs from other ride-hail ventures in that it doesn’t split fare revenue with drivers. Gokada charges drivers a flat-fee of 3,000 Nigerian Naira a day (around $8) to work on their platform. The company looks to generate a larger share of its revenue from building a commercial network around its driver community.

More American sports celebrities are getting involved in African tech. Serena Williams invested in Andela, NBA star Andre Iguodala joined Jumia’s board, and in May, NFL hall-of-famer Joe Montana invested in African fintech startup Chipper Cash.

The Africa focused no-fee, cross-border payment startup raised a $2.4 million seed round led by Deciens Capital.

The payments company also persuaded 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures — co-founded by Joe Montana — to join the round.

Chipper Cash’s Ugandan chief executive, Ham Serunjogi, pitched the U.S. football legend directly.

Based in San Francisco — with offices in Ghana and Nairobi — Chipper Cash has processed 250,000 cross-border, P2P transactions for more than 70,000 active users, according to Serunjogi.

In conjunction with the seed round, Chipper Cash is launching Chipper Checkout: a merchant-focused, C2B mobile payments product.

This side of the startup’s offerings isn’t free, and Chipper Cash will use revenues from Chipper Checkout  to support its no-fee, Africa mobile money business.

Chipper Cash will expand beyond its current operations in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda within the next 12 months.

Finally, in May Facebook week purged a network of hundreds of pages, groups and Instagram accounts it labeled as producing “coordinated inauthentic behavior” toward Africa.

The activity originated in Israel and was largely targeted toward Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger, and Tunisia.

It was mostly political in nature and primarily paid for by Archemedes Group, a global political consulting firm, Facebook said.

The affair highlighted a pattern of fake news on social media platforms rearing its head in Africa. Cambridge Analytica, backed by U.S. big-data billionaire Robert Mercer, was found to have been involved in elections in Kenya and Nigeria before its controversial role directing pro-Brexit and pro-Trump online activity in 2016. Facebook later banned Cambridge Analytica from its platform.

Social media driven fake news — primarily on Facebook and WhatsApp — became such an issue in Kenya’s 2017 elections the country’s parliament passed a bill in 2018, with specific punitive measures, to combat it.

Facebook has prioritized growth in Africa and grown Africa users to over 200 million and Facebook owned chat-tool, WhatsApp, is the most downloaded messenger app on the continent.

But Facebook’s recent Africa account purge shows when Facebook travels, so too does its list of pros and cons, including the ability of global actors to use it for nefarious uses in local settings.

More Africa Related Stories @TechCrunch

• Zipline’s new $190 million funding means it’s the newest billion dollar contender in the game of drones
• WorldCover raises $6M round for emerging markets’ climate insurance
• These startups are locating in SF and Africa to win in global fintech
• Diving deep into Africa’s blossoming tech scene

African Tech Around The Net

• MTN lists on Nigeria Stock Exchange, becomes second most valuable company
• Microsoft to spend $100 million on Kenya, Nigeria tech development hub
• Uganda’s SafeBoda secures Series B funding round

 

 

 

CNN’s website is currently blocked in mainland China, after it published a story about today’s 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre as one of its top headlines. The site is usually accessible in China, according to historical data from GreatFire.org.

Matt Rivers, a Beijing-based reporter, noted the blocking of the site on Twitter, writing that “the government here is near obsessive about limiting conversation on this topic.

It appears the Chinese government has begun to block @CNN’s website in mainland China. It’s usually available. Our top story sright now is about the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The government here is near obsessive about limiting conversation on this topic pic.twitter.com/Hjatdko3Gx

— Matt Rivers (@MattRiversCNN) June 4, 2019

Information about the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstration, which ended when the government ordered troops to fire on activists, is suppressed in China, but the country’s censorship apparatus begins intensifying its efforts at eradicating any mention of the events in the weeks leading up to its anniversary each year.

Earlier today, financial information provider Refinitiv also took down Reuters stories related to Tiananmen Square from its Eikon information terminal, following an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the government’s Internet regulation and censorship agency. The CAC told Refinitiv it would suspend its service in China if did not comply with the order.

Even though the stories were only supposed to be blocked in China, Reuters reported today that some users outside of China also said they could not see them, though the reason for that is unclear. (Early versions of the Reuters story about the suspension were themselves removed from Eikon, too).

Meet Georges, a French startup that wants to help freelancers, doctors and lawyers when it comes to accounting. With Georges, you can get rid of your accountant altogether and switch to a software-as-a-service product. Alven is leading today’s round with other investors also participating.

Automated accounting is an interesting space. For instance, Roger just raised $7.35 million last week. But Georges focuses on one type of company in particular — people working on their own as freelancers, coaches, doctors, architects, lawyers, etc.

The product is dead simple. First, you connect Georges with your professional bank account. The company leverages Bankin’ to connect to the vast majority of French banks. After that, Georges automatically tags revenue and expenses to calculate your annual revenue, VAT, etc.

It’s not perfect so you still have to manually categorize some transactions. But it’s still much faster than entering each transaction in an accounting application. Once everything is tagged properly, Georges generates paperwork and sends it to tax authorities.

The company competes with more traditional software solutions, such as BNC Express. With a bit of machine-learning, Georges could quickly become much more efficient than those legacy tools.

Georges has attracted tens of thousands of customers so far. It currently costs €24 per month ($27 per month) to access the platform.

The startup had previously raised a $1.1 million (€1 million) seed round from Kerala and Fast Forward in March 2018. It’s going to be interesting to see if they can expand to small businesses and other types of companies as it would represent a big market opportunity.

Apple unveiled a range of India-specific features in iOS 13 at WWDC this week as it begins to adapt its software for the world’s second largest internet market. But if you want to see how far an international service can be customized for the Indian market, look to Google Maps.

The app, which is used by hundreds of millions of people in India, today introduced three new capabilities: the ability to check live status of trains, bus travel times in 10 of India’s largest cities, and mixed-mode commute suggestions that combine auto-rickshaw and public transport.

For live status of trains, the company says it worked with Sigmoid Labs, a local startup it acquired last year. Sigmoid Labs maintains an app called ‘Where is My Train’ that offer similar functionalities — and that continues to exist as a standalone app.

The update means Google Maps users in India can now find all the suitable trains between two destinations and check their whereabouts from within the app. Each day, more than eight million people in India hop on a train to move between and through towns and cities to get to work.

For bus travel times, a feature Google is introducing for the first time in any market, the company says it is relying on a combination of its live traffic data and public bus schedules to calculate delays and provide accurate travel times. It is available in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Lucknow, Chennai, Mysore, Coimbatore, and Surat.

The mixed-mode commute looks at journeys that combine travel in both an auto-rickshaw and public transport. So, for example, if you take an auto-rickshaw to get to a bus stand, and then board a bus from there as is common across many cities.

Google says Maps app can now suggest users when taking multiple commutes is a viable option and estimate how much time the journey would take. The app will also be able to suggest when a user should make the switch from one mode of transportation to another. This feature is initially limited to Android users who are located in Delhi and Bangalore, but Google said it will be extended to more cities soon.

In recent months, Google has added a number of features to Google Maps in India, some of which are available in other markets, too. Those additions include the ability to report traffic congestion and accidents, and, most recently, support for auto-rickshaw travel. The app also allows users to share their live location with friends and family. Late last year, the company inked a deal with ticket booking platform Redbus to add inter-city bus transportation information.

Google remains aggressively committed to India, a market where it is estimated to have more than 300 million users. The company has used the country as the testbed for many of its services including YouTube Go and Google Station.

That’s helped Google surge in terms of usage. That, combined with the dominant of Android as an operating system, has led to an anti-trust probe on Google’s influence in the nation.

Apple unveiled a range of India-specific features in iOS 13 at WWDC this week as it begins to adapt its software for the world’s second largest internet market. But if you want to see how far an international service can be customized for the Indian market, look to Google Maps.

The app, which is used by hundreds of millions of people in India, today introduced three new capabilities: the ability to check live status of trains, bus travel times in 10 of India’s largest cities, and mixed-mode commute suggestions that combine auto-rickshaw and public transport.

For live status of trains, the company says it worked with Sigmoid Labs, a local startup it acquired last year. Sigmoid Labs maintains an app called ‘Where is My Train’ that offer similar functionalities — and that continues to exist as a standalone app.

The update means Google Maps users in India can now find all the suitable trains between two destinations and check their whereabouts from within the app. Each day, more than eight million people in India hop on a train to move between and through towns and cities to get to work.

For bus travel times, a feature Google is introducing for the first time in any market, the company says it is relying on a combination of its live traffic data and public bus schedules to calculate delays and provide accurate travel times. It is available in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Lucknow, Chennai, Mysore, Coimbatore, and Surat.

The mixed-mode commute looks at journeys that combine travel in both an auto-rickshaw and public transport. So, for example, if you take an auto-rickshaw to get to a bus stand, and then board a bus from there as is common across many cities.

Google says Maps app can now suggest users when taking multiple commutes is a viable option and estimate how much time the journey would take. The app will also be able to suggest when a user should make the switch from one mode of transportation to another. This feature is initially limited to Android users who are located in Delhi and Bangalore, but Google said it will be extended to more cities soon.

In recent months, Google has added a number of features to Google Maps in India, some of which are available in other markets, too. Those additions include the ability to report traffic congestion and accidents, and, most recently, support for auto-rickshaw travel. The app also allows users to share their live location with friends and family. Late last year, the company inked a deal with ticket booking platform Redbus to add inter-city bus transportation information.

Google remains aggressively committed to India, a market where it is estimated to have more than 300 million users. The company has used the country as the testbed for many of its services including YouTube Go and Google Station.

That’s helped Google surge in terms of usage. That, combined with the dominant of Android as an operating system, has led to an anti-trust probe on Google’s influence in the nation.

Singapore is keen to exert itself as an epicenter for startups and tech worldwide. But beyond the government-backed startup programs, which include grants, investment checks and more, a key point is simply making it easy for companies to set up shop in the country.

Southeast Asia is highly-touted as a growth region for startups, with its ‘internet economy’ forecast to triple between now and 2025, and Singapore is the most obvious anchor for the region. Neighboring countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam may have larger economies and populations, but bureaucracy can be arduous. In comparison, Singapore has digitized the process of incorporating and managing a business based there. More than just its local region, Singapore wants to be a global hub for companies.

Perhaps the best sign of that potential is that startups of its own are stepping up to help founders from any corner of the world register in Singapore, one of which includes Sleek. The company was founded in Singapore in May 2017 by French entrepreneurs Julien Labruyere and Adrien Barthel, who grew frustrated at the pedestrian speed of traditional corporate secretaries and accounting firms and their paperwork.

By contrast, Sleek is paperless. The idea is a one-stop-shop for registering a business in Singapore, so that means handling everything from incorporation, government, accounting and taxes, visas and regulatory compliance.

For SG$800 ($585) per year, Sleek will take on the role of compliance officer, with more expensive packages for nominee director, registered address, employee pass applications and more. Taxes and other costs are, of course, not included but the processes to handle them are offered on a pay-per-use basis.

Barthel — whose past roles including Luxola when it was acquired by Sephora — told TechCrunch that there’s still a significant paper trail, despite the digitization of many corporation processes in Singapore, but Sleek has made its own systems to cover that for now.

“As we receive mail every day for hundreds of companies, we have developed an AI that analyzes all the mail we receive for our clients, and that dispatches the documents in the right client cloud mailbox,” he said. That’s in addition to a workflow management tool.

Sleek has grown to over 50 people and it claims to work with over 1,000 clients, ranging from one-person consultancies to MNC sub-divisions and local startups. It is also a partner of Xero, which lists it as a ‘gold’ level partner — that’s ahead of better-known rivals including accounting’s Big Four, KPMG, EY, Deloitte and PwC.

The startup is now looking to push on after it raised an undisclosed round of investment that included participation from Martin Crawford, the former CEO of corporate services giant Vistra.

Hong Kong-based Vistra offers a range of services, including incorporation, across 78 offices worldwide and Bartel is excited at the potential to bring Crawford’s experience on board.

“His 25 years in our industry, serving hundred thousands of clients across 52 jurisdictions, made him realize that only technology could help tap this vast opportunity,” he said in an interview.

Coming up in the future will be partnerships with other companies that can add new services that complement the work of Sleek. That platform-like approach, Barthel said, will include new projects from third-parties around financial services, more granular accounting controls and more. There are also plans to launch a similar service for incorporation in Hong Kong soon.

“What excites us is that we help entrepreneurs and SMEs at the very inception of their journey, assisting them in the good and the more challenging times,” Barthel said.

Sleek is far from the only player in the digital incorporation space. Aside from the aforementioned Big Four and Vistra, Singapore is home to other newer entrants. Those include Lanturn — another Xero partner — Osome and Bluemeg, each of which has arrived since Sleek’s foundation to add more competition.

Bathel said he welcomes the competition as a validation of “changing habits,” and particularly demand for “a new user experience that’s up to date with digital tools and no longer hardcopies to send across the world.”

As for why he believes Sleek has the edge on its rivals? He puts that down to its outsider status, which has helped understand the pain of the traditional system in a very personal way.

“We were frustrated clients who decided to build an alternative fitting our needs,” he explained.

Tink, the European open banking platform that recently raised €56 million in new funding, is disclosing that PayPal has become a strategic investor.

The online payments giant joins a long list of existing backers that includes U.S.-based Insight Venture Partners, Sunstone, SEB, Nordea Ventures and ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund. Individuals such as Christian Clausen, former chairman of the European Banking Federation, and Nikolay Storonsky, co-founder of banking app Revolut, are also investors.

Originally launched in Sweden in 2013 as a consumer-facing finance app with bank account aggregation at its heart, Tink has since repositioned its offering to provide the same underlying technology and more to banks and other financial service providers that want to ride the open banking/PSD2 train.

Through various APIs, Tink provides four pillars of technology: “Account Aggregation,” “Payment Initiation,” “Personal Finance Management” and “Data Enrichment.” These can be used by third parties to roll their own standalone apps or integrated into existing banking applications.

Meanwhile, with its investment, PayPal has agreed to partner with Tink to leverage its account aggregation technology to “improve product experiences” for PayPal customers. What this means in practice isn’t entirely clear, although it is likely PayPal could use open banking for easier and more secure on-boarding. Another obvious use case would be to check your bank balance prior to initiating a debit card payment or use your transaction history in relation to PayPal Credit.

Adds Jennifer Marriner, VP of global markets and partnerships of PayPal:: “Open banking is transforming financial services, allowing customers to more easily move and manage their money. Tink has developed the infrastructure and data services for this new financial world and we’re excited to work together to continue to democratise financial services”.

Apple doled out its 2019 Design Awards at its Worldwide Developer Conference this afternoon, highlighting a range of apps that work as beautifully as they look, the company said. This year, half the award winners were mobile games, which may speak to where much design innovation is today taking place. Other creativity focused and health care apps filled out the rest of the winners’ list.

To take home a prize, the apps’ had to excel across three areas: visual design, technology, and innovation. Specifically, Apple looks for apps that take full advantage of its latest devices and technologies.

The award winners don’t just get to take home a (newly redesigned) trophy. They also get an envious Apple prize pack that includes a 512GB iPhone 10S, AirPods, a 512GB 12.9 inch iPad Pro, Apple Pencil 2, a 64GB Apple TV 4K, an Apple Watch Series 4, a top of the line MacBook Pro, and a fully loaded iMac Pro. The apps will also be featured in the iOS App Store, gaining them more exposure.

The winning apps this year included:

Ordia: a one-finger action game where you play as a new life form taking its first leaps into a strange and hazardous world. Apple said this game offered a great balance between difficulty and satisfaction. It also focused on accessibility features, with a colorblind mode, for example. The game, from Loju LTD, was developed for two years and launched only a month ago, catching Apple’s eye.

Flow by Moleskin: Creative app for sketching, writing and drawing, Flow, was chosen for its attention to detail and overall design. It also showcased Apple technologies like Apple Pencil, gestures, iOS drawing APIs, and Metal.

The Gardens Between: A a single-player adventure-puzzle game about time, memory and friendship from The Voxel Agents won for its cinematic moments and immersive experience. Apple also really liked its gameplay mechanic which lets you stop time, which allows you to play without feeling rushed.

Asphalt 9 Legends: Gameloft’s latest iteration on the car racing game features cars from Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, and W Motors. What makes it worthy of the award are its incredible effects and graphics, as well as its custom engine and Metal 2 integration. 

Pixelmator Photo: This photo editing app specifically won for its iPad version, which makes photo editing easy for everyone. But what Apple really liked was its use of Metal, CoreML and how it leveraged machine learning technologies to suggest changes to photos.

ELOH: Another game winner, this one described as a “chilled out puzzler.” The game helps you relax and decompress, said Apple, but its key component is its sound effects soundtrack, which complements its beautiful graphics and the animations. There are no time constraints on this one, so you can relax and enjoy playing.

Butterfly IQ – Ultrasound: This app was a standout from the group for focusing on a real healthcare need, not gaming or the creative arts. The app connects with a separate device to give mobile ultrasounds. The app won based largely on that innovation alone. As Apple noted, the idea with this app is that you can move ultrasound to a microchip and move the computer to an iOS device, instead of the big, expensive machines required today.

Thumper: Pocket Edition: This winning music rhythm game was unique and did a great job introducing new game mechanics involving swipes and taps. But it also has a psychedelic soundtrack to complement the action that sounds great when played loud.

Homecourt: The Basketball App:  This basketball training app uses a proprietary mobile AI technology to track, record, and provide deep analysis of all your shots and workouts using your iPhone’s camera.

 

 

At last year’s Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple announced the new app Siri Shortcuts which allows iOS users to create custom voice commands for their apps. Today, the company unveiled a series of updates to its Siri Shortcuts app to improve the experience for users and app developers alike. It also noted the app would now come pre-installed on iOS devices as of iOS 13 instead of being offered only as a download from the App Store.

In today’s version of Siri Shortcuts, users are prompted to record their own voice command to launch a favorite app or take a specific action. For example, “order my coffee” could trigger a mobile order placed in a coffee shop’s ordering app. Developers have been able to place a button in their app to direct users to create a Shortcut as well as suggest a phrase as part of this process. However, users would have to actually go through the steps of pressing record and saying the command before they could use it.

That may have impeded some users from adopting Siri shortcuts. Maybe they were confused about the process, or didn’t want to perform the extra steps. Or maybe they tapped the “Add to Siri” button to see what it did, but weren’t in a place where they wanted to record their voice command — like in a public place, perhaps.

With the updated Siri Shortcuts, developers can suggest a voice command as before, but instead of recording it, users can opt to use it with just a tap of a button.

Apple is also responding to one of developers’ biggest requests with the introduction of parameters in Shortcuts. This will make Shortcuts more conversational, Apple explains. For example, if a user wanted to find something to cook from their preferred recipes app they could launch it via a Shortcut to see a list of their favorite recipes. When they picked a recipe from the list, it would then take the user to that recipe and start playing the cooking instructions.

This is made possible through Siri’s new ability to ask follow-up questions. If you told Siri to order takeout, for example, the assistant may ask which order you wanted.

Another new feature, also by popular request, is support for automation. This is available from a new Automations tab in the app and allows users to set when to run any Shortcut when creating a custom command in the Siri Shortcuts apps. For instance, you could configure a Shortcut to run based on time of day, when you start a workout on your Apple Watch, when you connect to CarPlay, and more.

The editor in the updated Shortcuts app now enables full configuration of an app’s actions, including the ability to pass information in or out of the action through parameters. This allows an app’s actions to be combined with others for more robust, multi-step shortcuts. In practice, this would allow users to do something like run a Shortcut for a restaurant delivery app, choose their meals, place the order, then text the whole family what’s for dinner and when it will arrive.

All the Shortcuts work across Apple’s platforms, including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and HomePod.

The changes to Shortcuts were announced this afternoon to developers attending Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference.

Earlier in the day, Apple also announced a new more natural voice for Siri and the ability to respond to messages via Siri using AirPods.

Google and Amazon today get a lot of attention for their voice platforms because of HomePod’s niche share of the consumer smart speaker market. But Apple today reminded the audience of Siri’s massive reach. Its intelligent assistant today has over 500 million monthly active devices making over 15 million requests, the company noted.

 

Mercedes-Benz is expanding a pilot subscription service that lets users switch between different luxury models to a third U.S. city a year after launching in Nashville and Philadelphia.

The pilot is another example of how automakers are experimenting — with mixed levels of success — with different ways to make money beyond producing and selling cars, trucks and SUVs. Cadillac, Volvo, Porsche and Audi have also launched subscription plans. Cadillac shuttered its service after a year; it’s recently announced plans to re-launch the service, but this time involving dealers more.

The luxury automaker, which is owned by Daimler, plans to bring its so-called “Mercedes-Benz Collection” to Atlanta, the same city where its U.S. headquarters are located. Clutch Technologies will continue to operate the subscription platform. That’s the same city where Porsche initially launched its subscription service.

Mercedes also plans to test a new subscription tier in Atlanta that will consist exclusively of the company’s high-performance AMG models.

The decision to expand is based on the success in its two initial markets, according to Mercedes. It’s been an especially fruitful program at attracting younger customers and those who have never owned a Mercedes. The automaker says 82% of its subscribers are new to Mercedes-Benz, and

“Interestingly, families and couples are equally accessing the service whether for use as their primary car, for fun or as a way to test drive a wide variety of models,” said Adam Chamberlain, vice president of sales for MBUSA.

The concierge-style service gives customers a choice between more than 50 model variants, depending on what tier a customer has subscribed to. The program has three tiers that range in price from $1,095 to $2,995 a month. Subscribers also pay a one-time activation fee of $495. The monthly subscription fee for the tier also includes insurance, 24/7 roadside assistance, vehicle maintenance and no mileage limitations.

Each tier also allows access to the company’s popular high-performance Mercedes-AMG models.

Once customers have downloaded the app and passed a credit check, they can access the portfolio and request a vehicle. A concierge delivers the new vehicle washed, with a full tank of gas and takes away the previous vehicle.