Hailo merges with Mytaxi
Daimler, the German car giant took a majority control stake of taxi app Hailo, the British black cabs bearing the yellow livery of Hailo.
Hailo, the black cab hailing app which allows customers to order a taxi directly from their smartphone, announced on 26th July 2016, that it had merged with mytaxi, a similar service run by the German car giant, which will see Daimler take a 60 per cent stake in the combined group.
Hailo, a British technology start-up, between three technology entrepreneurs and three taxi drivers, which attracted an initial funding of over £75m ($100m) from investors like Richard Brandson – will re-brand as mytaxi next year and will operate from its new headquarters in Hamburg. Hailo worked with black cabs in London and used its taxi driver co-founders to build a close relationship with cab drivers, which Uber till now failed to achieve. Hailo. Which operates mainly in the UK, Japan, Spain and Ireland, had previously warned it was running of funds after a failed venture into North America including US and Canada, as they failed to build a close relationship with New York cab drivers like in London. Uber dominated the market, so Hailo was left to try and make money from undercutting cheap rides and their strategy failed because they chose to work with yellow cabs in Manhattan and as they have the monopoly people don’t need an app to hail yellows cabs, as Hilo had 80 per cent rejection on the orders. Hailo was eventually forced to lay-off 40 employees in New York.
Daimler by combining Hailo and mytaxi, to create the largest European taxi e-Hailing company in Europe, by bringing cutting edge technology, with 10,000 taxi drivers covering 70 million users in 50 cities.
Hailo boss Andrew Pinnington, ex Carphone Warehouse executive, will be the CEO of mytaxi.