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Online staffing firm Sidecar backs out of ride, delivery businesses

December 30, 2015

Ridesharing provider Sidecar will cease ride-sharing and delivery operations effective at 2 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday, co-founder and CEO Sunil Paul wrote in a post Tuesday on Medium. However, he reported it’s not the end of the company.

“Our vision is to reinvent transportation and we’ve achieved that with ridesharing and deliveries,” Paul wrote. “It is, however, a bittersweet victory. Shutting down the Sidecar service is a disappointment for our team and our fans. The impact of our work, however, will be felt for generations to come.”

Sidecar was a competitor to Uber, which Staffing Industry Analysts ranks as the largest online staffing firm in terms of global human cloud spend.

Sidecar drivers are also independent contractors, similar to Uber’s business model. However, Uber has come under fire for its classification of drivers as independent contractors.

And while Uber is global, Sidecar’s ride service is available only in 10 US markets and its Sidecar Deliveries is available in only eight US markets. The company was formed in 2012 and based in San Francisco.