Sampo Hietanen’s MaaS Global has filed for bankruptcy

MaaS Global has filed fo bankruptcy, one month after having halted operations of its Whim app. MaaS Global was founded in 2015. A reason for the company losses is indicated as being the B2C subscription model strongly advocated by MaaS Global.

Founder and CEO of MaaS Global Sampo Hietanen, known in the industry as the father of the MaaS concept, shared on Linkedin that “Being forced to enter bankruptcy proceedings has been a tough decision but a necessary step in the current challenging Mobility industry. Our products will continue in Italy and Turkey with partners we have been helping as part of our recent efforts to embed Mobility into existing apps (B2BC)”. He has been involved in December 2022 in the Sustainable Bus webinar “MaaS and the future of urban mobility”.

MaaS Global filed for bankruptcy

Hietanen added that “As a next step, I really want to find a good home for the best in class tech combining all modes to one simple UX even with multimodal subscriptions. Our people have first hand experience of what works and what doesn’t and of course there’s tens of million of trips behind that know-how”.

Trade media Traffic Technology Today reported that “Despite amassing approximately 10,000 active monthly users in Helsinki, MaaS Global has struggled with financial losses for some time. In 2022 these were reported to be €9.3m against a turnover of €3.8m. At the time the company employed 38 individuals, though this was much reduced from its workforce peak of 120 at the start of 2020″.

During time, Whim gathered over €149 million in investments from Toyota, Mitsubishi and BP Ventures. It was active in cities such as Tokyo, Vienna, Birmingham, Antwerp, and Helsinki