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MyTaxi attracts US$13 million in growth investment

German company myTaxi, which has revolutionised the European taxi market in less than a year, has extended its group of current investors. Daimler AG subsidiary company Car2go joins the board of the Hamburg-based company acquiring a minority stake. Lars Hinrichs, founder of XING and Hackfwd, is also added to the group of myTaxi shareholders. The existing investors T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom, and KfW Bankengruppe, all contributed to the capital increase to promote the rapid growth
March 22, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
German company 4197 myTaxi, which has revolutionised the European taxi market in less than a year, has extended its group of current investors. 2069 Daimler AG subsidiary company 4190 Car2go joins the board of the Hamburg-based company acquiring a minority stake. Lars Hinrichs, founder of XING and 4191 Hackfwd, is also added to the group of myTaxi shareholders. The existing investors 4192 T-Venture, the venture capital arm of 4194 Deutsche Telekom, and 4195 KfW Bankengruppe, all contributed to the capital increase to promote the rapid growth of the company throughout Europe.

The myTaxi smart phone app, launched by Hamburg-based Intelligent Apps in March 2010, has been downloaded 0.8 million times and is being used in more than 30 cities in Germany. The service has expanded to cities in Austria, Switzerland and is shortly launching in Spain (Barcelona) and London. In Hamburg alone, 1,300 taxi drivers use the app and the company reports that over 7,000 taxi drivers in Europe now support the service.

myTaxi has revolutionised the taxi market because the customer can order a taxi directly via the innovative taxi-app, which transmits their exact location to the nearest taxi driver, making traditional dispatching centres obsolete. Users receive feedback on which taxi driver has taken the job and they can track their taxi‘s arrival live on a map on their smartphone. Taxi drivers only pay small trip fees without having to pay any monthly fixed costs to dispatching centres.

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