Ashton Kutcher, a practitioner of the Jewish spirituality movement known as Kabbalah, is no stranger to Israeli technology. Earlier this year, the actor teamed up with Houzz, an Israeli-founded home-design company, to remodel his mother’s house, and even appeared in the company’s premier episode of My Houzz to showcase the results.
Now, Sound Ventures, the venture capital firm Kutcher co-founded alongside Israeli-American talent manager Guy Oseary, has announced its investment in Israeli startup Moovit, a public transit app.
According to reports, the investment will be used to further expand Moovit’s presence across the Asian market, primarily in India and China.
Moovit, which has been referred to as the “Waze of public transit,” uses crowdsourced data to ensure faster service for transit users. It’s particularly beneficial in cities that do not have “readily available public transit data.”
“Say goodbye to waiting for that bus, train or subway that isn’t coming, and say hello to Moovit, your free, local transit planner,” the company boasts on its webpage. The app is currently available in 700 cities across 58 countries, and is used by approximately 28 million riders.
“We’re extremely proud to have Sound Ventures behind us as we continue to grow rapidly,” said Moovit CEO Nir Erez. “Investments like these help us to bring more public transit options to markets in need, like India and China, as well as to continue to strengthen our active community of editors around the world.”
With the funding from Sound Ventures, the company hopes to expand to three more Indian cities, and four Chinese cities (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing), according to Israeli business daily Globes.
“At Sound Ventures we’re on the hunt for hyper growth companies that are not only heading for greatness in size but that are also tackling real world issues,” Kutcher stated. “Moovit’s mission to make public transport a first choice for people across the globe, cutting back on individual car usage and making cities smarter, sits well with our vision to invest in game changers. We’re very excited to help Moovit on its journey to build a more eco-friendly way to navigate our cities worldwide.”
Moovit, founded in 2012, has raised over $81 million US from a variety of investors since its inception. Sound Ventures, which was launched earlier this year, has already invested in successful startups such as Uber, Airbnb, and Spotify.
