Solana-based ridesharing app Teleport is shutting down

Quick Take

  • The decentralized competitor to Uber and Lyft is shutting down, the company announced on Thursday. 
  • Teleport was founded in 2022 and raised $9 million amid a surge in interest in “dePIN” projects.

Teleport, the Solana-based Uber and Lyft competitor, is shutting down, the company announced on Thursday. 

“This is not the outcome we had hoped for, but we’re incredibly grateful for this community and everyone who believed in the vision and showed up with enthusiasm,” the company wrote. “Your support meant everything. Thank you for believing in us, and we’re sorry we didn’t find a way to make this business work!”

The company’s website now redirects to a message alerting users of the winddown. The app will provide off-ramping support until Feb. 28 so users can receive their remaining USDC stablecoin balances and private keys. 

“We’re hoping to post a more detailed analysis of what led to this decision in the future, but for now we’re focused on an orderly wind down,” the company said. 

Early crypto investor and former Dropbox coder Paul Bohm founded Teleport in 2022 amid booming interest in so-called “dePIN” projects. These “Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks,” like internet provider Helium, are attempts to bring crypto offline and into the real world. 

Teleport used a reward system inspired by Bitcoin's mining rewards, which rewarded early adopters with Compressed NFTs on Solana. 

In a previous interview, Bohm noted the app spread through “permissionless marketing.”

“Instead of spending corporate budget on acquiring drivers and writers we give other people the tools to recruit each other,” he said

The idea was to reduce ride-sharing costs and boost drivers' revenues by creating a more efficient bidding market on its transparent and open Rideshare Protocol. 

The Decentralized Engineering Corporation that built the app raised $9 million in a seed funding round co-led by Steve Vassallo at Foundation Capital and Thomas Bailey at Road Capital.


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About Author

Daniel Kuhn is a Senior Journalist and Editor at The Block, where he covers the crypto industry with a particular focus on tech. He previously served as deputy managing editor of opinion/features at CoinDesk. He first appeared in print in Financial Planning, a trade publication magazine. Before journalism, he studied philosophy as an undergrad, English literature in graduate school and business and economic reporting at an NYU professional program. You can connect with him on Twitter and Telegram @danielgkuhn or find him on Urbit as ~dorrys-lonreb.

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