GoTo was launched at the beginning of November 2018 after winning a public tender issued by Transport Malta seeking a car-sharing service provider to reduce dependency on owning cars in the island nation. The Israeli firm has ten years of car-sharing experience and uses its in-house technology that they also provide to other companies.

“The principle is that instead of owning a car, multiple people can use the same car through different times of the day. Therefore the number of cars on the roads and in parking places can be reduced,” Ms Jasenaite says. GoTo’s car-sharing concept comes on time, as roads in Malta have seen an increasing grade of congestion.

For the time being, Malta is the only country in the world where GoTo operates by only using electric vehicles. GoTo uses its own infrastructure; they have built the charging stations they use, and they see further expansion in this regard.

“We brought the service of car-sharing to Malta, and we are also building electric charging stations. Our goal is to build a total of 225 charging stations. Currently, we have 450 designated parking spots in Malta, but not all of them have charging stations, as we have 60 chargers, for now. Our goal is to add charging stations to all our parking spots,” the commercial chief says.

The charging stations and parking spots are exclusive to GoTo cars at the moment; however, the company is planning to open up their parking spots and charging stations for the public once they reached their 225 charger goal.

Gradually growing market

At the moment the firm is trying to understand the demand of the Maltese market before they would start planning expansion. GoTo Malta records 460 one-way trips per day on average, numbers upping to an average 600 per day on Fridays and Saturdays. As the service is growing in user numbers, and fuelled by this increasing demand, GoTo Malta can easily imagine growing further. “If we are going with the same level of growth, we will be introducing new cars,” Ms Jasenaite says.

In terms of car usage, the most popular area for car-sharing is the Great Northern Harbour. There are multiple reasons for this tendency, but one of the major drivers is that the area is the most active from an economic perspective, and it is where most of the expats live.

“There are three main groups of our customers. The first is expats who live in Malta for a few years only, who do not intend to buy own cars. The second group comprise of environmentally-conscious people who opt for our service in making efforts for protecting the environment. The third group of people uses our services for easier parking, especially in the heavily congested areas, using our designated parking spots. They might own cars, but it is much easier to drive into the busiest towns knowing that they will surely have parking spots,” the chief says.

Another exciting characteristic of GoTo users is that they are not exclusive to car-sharing; instead, they would use all other means of transportation. “What we see is that our customers usually are not exclusive to car sharing; they use several other forms like public transport, riding taxis, walking, riding bikes or driving their own cars,” Ms Jasenaite says.

Looking into the future, she believes once people realise how comfortable electric vehicles are, the shift toward EV will happen swiftly. “The Renault ZOEs that we use can go close to 270 kilometres with one two-and-half-hour charging stop,” she points out, adding that the charging costs are also lower than paying for fuel.

The post GoTo Malta’s growing user base can fuel further growth first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

GoTo Mobility currently offers its services in Malta and 12 other cities internationally. Moovit’s mobile application provides presently services of GoTo, Autotel and CAR2GO. Utilising the app, users have access to shared cars in Israel as a first step of integrating the services that GoTo Mobility powers around the world, with more to follow.

“The integration between GoTo Mobility and Moovit in Israel opens up new possibilities for the mobility operations we power around the world. Now our customers can get more users by having their shared vehicles visible on the Moovit application thanks to the integration,” says Shirly Kalush, COO at GoTo Mobility. “Moovit is a great service working in 2,700 cities in 87 countries and 44 languages. It is a win-win partnership for all of us: Moovit users will get access to shared vehicles, while GoTo Mobility powered operators will receive more demand,” adds Ms Kalush.

“People in urban areas have dozens of ways to access urban mobility, whether it’s by bus, train, ferry, auto ride-sharing, bike or scooter,” says Yovav Meydad, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Moovit. “Moovit is a leading Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform and #1 urban mobility app in the world. We always strive to provide the most complete range of mobility options to our users, so we are pleased to join forces with GoTo Mobility to add car-sharing services to our platform,” Mr Meydad adds.

GoTo Mobility is a white label vehicle sharing software, powering operations in 13 cities worldwide. Among GoTo Mobility customers are Car2Go Israel, car sharing of Malta, Respiro, a Seat company, and AutoTel.

The post GoTo Mobility integrates platform with Moovit first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

GCAN is a biopharmaceutical company focusing on the development and commercialisation of innovative delivery systems for the cannabis market. iCAN is an Israeli developer of cannabis-based formulations, clinical trials and cannabis testing.

The eluting patch platform is an “innovative delivery system, which uses a patented mucoadhesive and multilayered orally dissolving thin film to deliver a precise dose of cannabinoids into the body through the buccal mucosa,” the press release says. Clinical studies, funded in part by the US-based National Institutes of Health (NIH), have shown the delivery system’s capability in achieving higher bioavailability in the body using lower and controlled, dosing when compared to other routes of administration, according to the press release.

The agreement with iCAN will include commercial-ready formulations to meet medical and recreational market demands. Distribution and marketing rights for iCAN will consist of Malta, along with another list of countries — Israel, Australia, South Africa, Netherlands, South Africa, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Macedonia, and Portuguese territories.

Focusing globally on the cannabis ecosystem, iCAN operates a global platform for distribution of such products through its iCAN Serve unit and works with a portfolio of like-minded companies, including but not limited to CannRx, CMTREX, CannaTech and endoCRO.

“I am very excited about the prospect of offering GCAN’s products through our many distribution channels,” says Saul Kaye, CEO of iCAN. “I have seen many groundbreaking innovations come through our CannaTech conferences, and the eluting patch technology was a platform I was particularly impressed with. I believe this technology can redefine how consumers think about cannabis. From the lower-dosage form to the controlled and slow-release mechanisms, and the ability to use it anywhere, I believe the product will resonate really well with consumers and generate rapid traction in the markets we intend to bring it to,” he adds.

“I am pleased to announce our partnership with iCAN,” says Aitan Zacharin, CEO of GCAN. “Saul [Kaye, iCAN CEO] is an industry leader who is at the forefront of everything tech in cannabis. His desire to partner with us is a testament to the strength of our technology and its capabilities. We are excited to establish this important partnership in the medical and adult-use cannabis industry. We are focused on transactions that will accelerate the commercialisation of our products, and the iCAN deal does that globally. iCAN shares our enthusiasm for seeing healthier, standardised, pharmaceutical-grade, and more cost-effective cannabis products introduced into the market. We look forward to working with iCAN to bring our cutting-edge technology to consumers worldwide,” he adds.

Cannabis in Malta

Views on cannabis have been transforming globally in recent years. Many countries have made measures of decriminalisation, allowing medical usage and some even legalising recreational usage to a certain extent. Malta has already made steps towards decriminalisation and medical usage, in 2015 and 2018, respectively.

New policies were introduced in 2015 in Malta to decriminalise cannabis, though simple possession is still considered as an “arrestable offence”, according to press reports. People caught with quantities smaller than 3.5g of cannabis are subject to fines ranging between €50 and €100, but they do not need to appear in court but before a Justice Commissioner. However, the police is allowed to detain people caught with small quantities for up to 48 hours to interrogate them for information to fight drug trafficking.

The Maltese legislation is more lenient towards cannabis than any other drugs. An individual caught possessing small quantities of drugs other than cannabis for the second time in two years will need to appear before the Drug Offenders Rehabilitation Board and attend due rehabilitation. However, in the case of cannabis, offenders are exempted from appearing before the board, regardless of how many times they are caught.

At the same time, pressure had appeared to be growing in terms of the medical use of cannabis. Although the 2015 reform partially legalised medical cannabis as a last resort solution for patients suffering from chronic pain, news reports suggested only a few patients had been treated in practice due to a stock shortage of such products, as well as hiking prices of the ones available on shelves, according to a report by Malta Today.

In 2018, Malta officially legalised medical cannabis. After its third and final reading, amendments to the Drug Dependence Act were enacted by Parliament on the 26th of March. The law allows family doctors to prescribe non-smoking forms of medicine available at pharmacies for patients, after the Superintendent of Public Health has approved of a control card, according to another report by Malta Today.

The post Global cannabis firms ink letter of intent on distribution first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.