TechCrunch April 24, 2014
Another funding round for another taxi app company — albeit this one, Estonian startup Taxify, is focusing on helping existing taxi companies fight the encroaching threat on their business from independent drivers making like cabbies with help of apps like Uber and Cabify. Taxify has closed a $100,000 seed round, with investment coming from multiple angel investors from the U.S., Asia and Estonia, including Märt Kelder, Martin Villig and Andrus Purde (from “Skype Mafia”), Toomas Bergmann (co-founder of fleet tracking platform Navirec) and Finnish serial entrepreneur Mikko Silventola. The startup, which launched its service last fall, has previously received a €5,000 grant from Estonian Enterprise.
Taxify is currently operating in Estonia and Latvia, and said it plans to use the new funding to expand in Eastern Europe in the near term. It offers existing cab companies an all-in-one solution – including a web-based dispatcher and fleet management systems to manage their back-end. These different cab companies are then presented to the consumer within the unified Taxify app, allowing multiple taxi businesses to sit on its platform and compete (in technology terms) with tech-fueled industry upstarts like Uber.
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