Both Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. have held acquisition talks with Skedaddle Inc., a New York City-based crowdsourced bus startup, according to reports Thursday.

Axios claimed that the two ride-hailing companies each held acquisition talks with the company, but Lyft said it’s currently “not in discussions to acquire Skedaddle.” TechCrunch reported that Uber has been in acquisition talks with the company for “over a month,” implying that those talks are ongoing.

Founded in 2015, Skedaddle is described as a crowdsourcing company as it matches bus transport with groups of people wishing to travel to the same destination. The service doesn’t tap into existing bus routes but instead allows like-minded people to hire a bus and driver to take them to and from from a given destination.

One example is the company’s role in arranging transport to those attending the Women’s March in Washington D.C. last year, where the company matched people wanting to attend to bus transport to the march. People getting together and hiring a bus isn’t exactly a groundbreaking concept, but where Skedaddle is different is that it matches people who do not know each other but have the same destination — be it a march, a music festival, a conference or another event together.

Lyft and Uber are each looking to expand their businesses into other forms of transportation, what TechCrunch described as a move toward a multimodal ecosystem.

Both have also entered the bike-sharing market. Uber acquired Jump Bikes Inc. for $400 million in April. Lyft acquired the core assets of Motivate International Inc., which offers both bicycle and electric scooter sharing, for $250 million earlier this week. In other words,  it’s clear that both Lyft and Uber are itching to expand their businesses into other forms of transport, making the potential acquisition of Skedaddle by one of them all the more likely.

Photo: 126337928@N05/Flickr