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By Cara Lombardo 

Exor NV, the holding company of Italy's Agnelli family, is nearing an investment in ride-share company Via Transportation Inc. that would mark its first big foray into the technology sector.

Exor plans to invest $200 million in New York-based Via, according to people familiar with the matter. The investment would give Exor just under a 9% stake in Via and would value Via at roughly $2.3 billion, they said. Via had last been valued at roughly $1 billion in late 2017, according to Pitchbook.

Via would become one of Exor's primary investments alongside significant stakes in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Ferrari NV, Italian soccer club Juventus and the Economist magazine, among others.

Via was founded in 2012 by Daniel Ramot and Oren Shoval, two friends who met in the Israeli army, and launched in New York City the following year. Unlike larger rivals Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., which tend to ferry individual riders, Via's focus is arranging carpools and partnering with cities, companies and schools to provide software to make shuttle and public transit routes more responsive to demand. In some cases, it also operates the routes.

For example, the company has a contract with the New York City Department of Education to use its software to plan school-bus routes, and it operates on-demand vans in cities including Seattle.

Via, which operates in 70 cities around the world, like many startups has been focused on expansion and hasn't yet posted a profit, this person said.

The investment would help Via increase in scale and apply its platform not just to personal travel but also deliveries, the people said. It isn't being made with an eye toward combining Via with one of Exor's automobile holdings, they said.

Exor, run by chairman and CEO John Elkann, previously made a small investment in Via through its Exor Seeds venture fund, according to its website. Noam Ohana, who runs Exor Seeds, is expected to join the board of Via as part of the deal being discussed, they said.

Like its competitors, Via has suspended shared rides in some areas in response to the coronavirus pandemic and has retooled some of its services. For example, it said last week it was partnering with the Berlin transit system to give rides to health-care workers in off-hours.

Even before recent widespread shutdowns caused ride numbers to plummet, Via and other startups faced increased scrutiny from investors who have become more wary of unprofitable companies in the wake of WeWork's aborted IPO and last year's disappointing debuts of Uber and Lyft.

As of Friday, Uber and Lyft were worth roughly $47 billion and $8.5 billion, respectively, a significant drop from their IPOs. Via has said its focus on shared rides makes it more sustainable and less likely to cause congestion than other ride-hailing services.

The Agnelli family owns 53% of Exor through a holding company controlled by more than 100 descendants of Mr. Elkann's great-great-grandfather, who co-founded Fiat at the end of the 19th century.

Exor owns 30% of Fiat Chrysler, a stake that will be cut in half when the Italian-American car maker completes its merger with Peugeot maker PSA Group by early next year. The holding company also owns 23% of luxury car maker Ferrari, almost two-thirds of Juventus and 27% of agricultural-equipment maker CNH Industrial NV.

Exor also owns reinsurer PartnerRe Ltd., which it recently agreed to sell for roughly $9 billion to French insurer Covéa Coopérations.

Write to Cara Lombardo at cara.lombardo@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 30, 2020 11:44 ET (15:44 GMT)

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