Teleport Shutting Down

Teleport, the Solana-based competitor to Uber and Lyft, announced its shutdown 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 stated. “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 informing users about the shutdown. The app will offer off-ramping support until February 28, allowing users to withdraw 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 mentioned.

Founded in 2022 by early crypto investor and former Dropbox developer Paul Bohm, Teleport emerged during a surge of interest in “dePIN” (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) projects, which aim to integrate crypto into real-world applications, similar to the Helium internet service.

Teleport employed a reward mechanism inspired by Bitcoin’s mining rewards, giving early adopters Compressed NFTs on Solana.

In an earlier interview, Bohm highlighted the app’s unique marketing approach. “Instead of spending corporate budget on acquiring drivers and writers, we give other people the tools to recruit each other,” he explained.

This strategy aimed to decrease ride-sharing costs and enhance driver earnings through a more efficient bidding market facilitated by its transparent and open Rideshare Protocol.

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