Alto, a 5-year-old ride-hailing startup, has announced plans to leave San Francisco after a year of service.
Courtesy of Alto
Now, the newcomer is cutting loose. A year after launch, Alto will no longer be available in San Francisco, co-founder and chief executive Will Coleman announced in an email to local members on Friday.
Coleman wrote that Alto is suspending its service in San Francisco to speed its growth in Los Angeles, Miami, Washington, D.C., Dallas and Houston, and that it expects to announce new markets soon. He also said San Francisco members will see their most recent membership charges refunded and they’ll get free months of membership in other cities.
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The company has already removed the Bay Area landing page from its website. “Rideshare usage in San Francisco is still 40% below pre-pandemic levels and hasn’t rebounded, so Alto made the decision to discontinue services in San Francisco,” a spokesperson told SFGATE, adding that the firm plans to reallocate resources to “higher growth markets.”
Alto’s driver pay model cut against that of Uber and Lyft, which have lobbied hard to see gig workers classified as independent contractors in California. The key proposition, Proposition 22, will soon come before the state’s Supreme Court. Alto provides drivers with leased luxury cars and pays them as actual employees — with health care, sick leave, paid time off and pay for time not actively driving customers. The firm also charges riders an up-front membership fee.
The Dallas-based company, founded in 2018, started setting up rides in San Francisco in July 2022. In December, Coleman told SFGATE that it takes 36 months for a market to mature and that the firm’s success in San Francisco would depend on the city’s post-pandemic rebound. He pointed to the slow return-to-office rate and sluggish dining reservation data, and said, “We’re cautiously monitoring that situation and we’ll expand as the city comes back to life.”
By March, Alto had 100 drivers in the Bay Area and around 50 leased cars. But the fleet didn’t operate 24/7 and only provided rides from as far south as Palo Alto, plus riders couldn’t get picked up anywhere in the East Bay or North Bay.
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That month, SFGATE asked, “Will it survive?” Now we know.
Hear of anything happening at Alto? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.