In December 2019, HERE Technologies shut down HERE Mobility, a business unit that had been building a B2B marketplace for ride-hailing, taxis, and on-demand transport. The closure ended a four-year experiment in mobility aggregation and shuttered the unit's Tel Aviv office. HERE Technologies redirected the remaining technology and personnel back into its core location platform.
The decision was not driven by a product failure. It was a strategic mismatch. HERE Mobility's marketplace model put HERE in direct contact with ride-hailing operators, taxi fleets, and public transport agencies. Many of them were also customers of HERE's core location platform. Running a marketplace that could be seen as competing with those customers created tension. When HERE Technologies reviewed its portfolio in late 2019, it concluded that the mobility unit was a distraction from the company's primary business: selling location data, navigation software, and platform APIs to automotive manufacturers, logistics companies, and app developers.
HERE Mobility was headquartered in Amsterdam and had a significant office in Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv office was closed as part of the shutdown, resulting in layoffs. The exact number of staff affected has not been disclosed. HERE Technologies did not announce a specific transition package, but the company said it would work to place affected employees in other roles where possible.
The Original Vision for HERE Mobility
HERE Technologies launched HERE Mobility in 2016, led by Liad Itzhak. The unit's purpose was to create an open, neutral marketplace where any transport provider could list its offering and any app or platform could book a ride. The idea was to solve fragmentation in urban mobility: a user might need three different apps to book a taxi, a ride-hail, and a shared scooter. HERE Mobility aimed to let a single interface access all of them.
The unit operated a B2B platform, not a consumer app. It sold access to its aggregation layer to other companies. A hotel chain could embed the marketplace into its concierge app, letting guests book a ride without installing a separate service. A city transit authority could use it to integrate private operators with public transport schedules. HERE Mobility charged a fee per transaction.
At launch, the unit signed partnerships with several European taxi networks and ride-hailing operators. It also integrated with public transport data in select cities. The ambition was to become the standard middleware for mobility booking, similar to what Google Maps did for navigation but with a transactional layer on top.
Why HERE Technologies Decided to Close the Unit
A conflict with core customers
By late 2019, it had become clear that the marketplace model was not aligned with HERE Technologies' broader strategy. HERE's core business is selling mapping data and location tools to enterprise customers. Those customers include automotive companies like BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen, which own stakes in HERE. They also include ride-hailing operators, delivery services, and logistics firms. Running a marketplace that could theoretically disintermediate those customers created a conflict.
A ride-hailing company that paid HERE for platform APIs might view HERE Mobility as a competitor if the marketplace made it easier for users to compare prices across services. Taxi fleets that relied on HERE for navigation software might resist adopting a platform that also listed rival operators. HERE Technologies concluded that the potential revenue from the marketplace was not worth the risk to its core licensing business.
An industry-wide reckoning
The decision also reflected a broader industry trend. By 2019, several mobility aggregation startups had either shut down or been acquired at low valuations. Moovit, a popular transit app, was acquired by Intel in 2020 but had struggled to monetize its aggregation features. Citymapper had pivoted to operating its own buses. The market for a neutral, open marketplace had not materialized at scale. HERE Mobility was not alone in facing these headwinds.
What Happened to the Technology and Assets
HERE Technologies did not sell the HERE Mobility unit or spin it out as a separate company. Instead, the technology and intellectual property developed by the unit were absorbed back into the parent company's core platform. The aggregation layer, the booking engine, and the real-time transport data integration tools were repurposed for HERE's existing location products.
Where the code landed
Some of the technology was integrated into HERE's platform APIs, allowing customers to add transport data to their own applications without building a full marketplace. A logistics company using HERE's routing API could now access real-time traffic and transit data that had been collected by the Mobility unit. The team's expertise in real-time data integration and multi-modal routing was also retained within the broader engineering organization.
The closure did not mean HERE abandoned mobility aggregation entirely. It simply meant that HERE would no longer operate a transactional marketplace. Instead, it would provide the underlying data and tools that other companies could use to build their own aggregation services. This was a return to HERE's traditional role as an infrastructure provider rather than a service operator.
Employee Impact and Office Closures
HERE Mobility's Tel Aviv office was shut down as a direct result of the December 2019 closure. The Amsterdam headquarters of the unit was also affected, though HERE Technologies did not disclose how many of the unit's employees were laid off versus reassigned. The company stated that it would try to redeploy staff to other parts of the business, particularly in roles related to mapping, data engineering, and product management.
For the Tel Aviv team, the closure was a significant blow. The office had been a center of excellence for mobility technology, and many employees had been recruited specifically for the marketplace project. Without a comparable unit within HERE, few local roles were available.
The layoffs in Tel Aviv were part of a broader trend of consolidation in the Israeli mobility tech sector, which had seen several startups shut down or reduce headcount in 2019 and 2020. Liad Itzhak, who had led the unit since its launch, left HERE Technologies around the time of the closure. His immediate next steps have not been publicly documented. HERE Technologies did not name a successor or indicate that it planned to continue the marketplace initiative in any form.
Broader Restructuring at HERE Technologies
The closure of HERE Mobility was one part of a larger strategic refocus at HERE Technologies. In the years leading up to 2019, the company had expanded aggressively into new business lines, including autonomous vehicle simulation, real-time traffic tools, and the mobility marketplace. By late 2019, management had decided to pull back and concentrate on the core location platform.
Pressure from the ownership consortium
This refocus was driven in part by the company's ownership structure. HERE Technologies is owned by a consortium of automotive companies, including Audi, BMW, and Daimler. These shareholders were primarily interested in high-definition mapping for autonomous driving and in-car navigation, not in operating a consumer-facing marketplace. The mobility unit's B2B model did not directly serve those interests. When the consortium reviewed HERE's strategy, the marketplace was identified as a non-core asset.
Competitive threats on the horizon
HERE also faced competitive pressure from Google Maps, which had been expanding its own location platform, and from open-source alternatives like OpenStreetMap. To compete effectively, HERE needed to invest heavily in its core data quality, coverage, and developer tools. The resources tied up in HERE Mobility were redirected to those priorities.
Market Context and Competitor Movements
HERE Mobility's closure took place against a backdrop of consolidation in the mobility aggregation space. By December 2019, several companies that had tried to build similar marketplaces had either failed or pivoted. Moovit had raised significant venture capital to build a multimodal transit app but was acquired by Intel in 2020. Moovit's aggregation features were later integrated into Intel's mobility-as-a-service division, not kept as a standalone marketplace.
Citymapper started as a transit aggregator but by 2019 was operating its own bus routes in London. The company had concluded that aggregation alone was not a sustainable business model and that owning the supply side was necessary for profitability. Citymapper's pivot validated HERE's decision: a neutral marketplace that did not control any of the underlying transport supply struggled to capture enough margin to justify the investment.
Ride-hailing giants like Uber and Lyft also moved away from aggregation. Uber had experimented with integrating public transit and other modes into its app, but by 2019 it was focused on its core ride-hailing and food delivery businesses. The idea of an open, neutral marketplace where any operator could list its offering had not gained traction. HERE Mobility's closure was a recognition that the market was not ready for that model, at least not as a standalone business.
Key Facts
- Parent company: HERE Technologies
- Unit name: HERE Mobility
- Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands; significant office in Tel Aviv, Israel
- Unit leader at launch: Liad Itzhak
- Closure announced: December 2019
- Tel Aviv office: Closed; employees laid off
- Technology fate: Absorbed into HERE's core mapping and location platform
- Strategic reason: Refocus on core mapping and location platform; marketplace model created conflicts with customers
FAQ
What was HERE Mobility?
HERE Mobility was a business unit of HERE Technologies that operated a B2B marketplace for on-demand transport, including ride-hailing, taxis, and public transit. It was launched in 2016 and shut down in December 2019.
Why did HERE Technologies close HERE Mobility?
HERE Technologies decided to close the unit as part of a strategic refocus on its core location platform. The marketplace model created conflicts with customers who used HERE's platform, and the unit was not aligned with the priorities of the company's automotive owner consortium.
What happened to the technology from HERE Mobility?
The technology and intellectual property developed by HERE Mobility were absorbed back into HERE Technologies' core location products. The aggregation layer, booking engine, and real-time data tools were repurposed for HERE's APIs and platform.
How many employees were affected by the closure?
The exact number of employees laid off has not been disclosed. The Tel Aviv office was closed, and staff in Amsterdam were also affected. HERE Technologies said it would try to redeploy employees to other roles within the company.
Was HERE Mobility a failure?
HERE Mobility was not a technological failure but a strategic casualty. The product worked, but the business model of a neutral marketplace was not aligned with HERE's core business of selling location data and platform tools to enterprise customers, many of whom were also potential marketplace participants.
