Vielly

Shared rides along accra bus routes

Epitaph

“Here lies Vielly. It planned shared rides along Accra's busiest road at a third of Uber's price, picking commuters up at bus stops. In December 2020 it was still hoping to launch the following month. The ride never came.”

Overview

Born: Unknown
Died: December 2020 (Month)
Fate: Dormant
Headquarters: 🇬🇭 Ghana
Category: Travel & Mobility
Primary cause: Unknown

Death certificate

Timeline

14 December 2020Announced
TechLabari reports Vielly plans to launch a social on-demand ride-sharing app for Accra commuters, around 70% cheaper than Uber and Bolt
January 2021Intended launch
The company said it hoped to launch the month after the TechLabari write-up, on one busy Accra road with limited drivers
6 October 2022Reported closed
TechLabari's ride-sharing review says Vielly and Rabarides, which attempted larger-vehicle sharing, seem to have closed up shop or died off

Autopsy report

Why did Vielly shut down?

Vielly was a Ghanaian mobility-as-a-service startup that planned a social, on-demand ride-sharing app for Accra commuters travelling similar routes, pitched at roughly 70% cheaper than Uber and Bolt. TechLabari reported in December 2020 that it hoped to launch the following month, starting on one of Accra's busiest roads with a limited number of drivers picking up at bus stops. By October 2022 the same publication reported that Vielly, along with Rabarides, appeared to have closed up shop. Nothing was found about how or why it ended.

What Vielly attempted

Vielly's model sat between a taxi app and a trotro. Commuters would request a ride at a nearby bus stop and share the cost with other riders heading along the same route, with the app integrating social media features and earning revenue from ride commissions and community advertising. The launch plan was deliberately narrow: one busy Accra corridor, a set of bus stops and a small pool of drivers, before widening.

What happened

Vielly's own web address no longer exists. Re-reading Tech Labari's 14 December 2020 write-up gives the company's website as ridewithvielly.com (a detail the first pass did not record) and that domain is now unregistered: a WHOIS lookup returns 'No WHOIS data was found for ridewithvielly.com … The domain doesn't exist', and direct DNS resolution returns NXDOMAIN. That is stronger than a parked domain: nobody has held the name since it lapsed. Separately, vielly.com, which the project's domain map attributes to this company, was only created on 18 March 2023 through Dynadot and sits on BrandBucket's nameservers as a for-sale brand name, so it was never Vielly's site and should not be used as evidence about it.

Lessons for future builders

Vielly was still hoping to launch two years after it was first written about, which is long enough for the idea to be the only thing that ever existed. Pricing at a third of Uber sets the ceiling on revenue before the first ride is taken.