Business news from Ukraine

ESTONIAN TAXIFY DECIDES TO RE-LAUNCH SERVICE IN KYIV

18 June , 2018  

Estonia’s startup Taxify, which designed a ride-sharing platform and first entered Ukraine in September 2016, has decided to re-launch the service in Kyiv and hope to develop in other large cities of Ukraine in 2018.
“The first launch of the service in Kyiv took place in 2016 according to the franchise agreement with Estonian entrepreneurs, and now the company will restart the project with its own local team,” the company said last week.
According to him, the possibilities of expanding the market and working in other large cities of Ukraine are also being studied.
According to Marcus Willig, CEO and co-founder of Taxify, the company has huge potential for growth in Ukraine. He said that over the past year the number of trips organized with the help of Taxify platform has grown 10-fold, and today more than 10 million people and 50,000 drivers use the company’s service in more than 25 countries.
To attract attention to the restart of the service, the company offers a 50% discount for passengers.
Speaking of competition, Taxify also claims to offer better relationships to drivers.
As reported, at the end of May 2018 Taxify reported that the company raised $175 million of financing and the company was valuated at $1 billion. Germany’s Mercedes-Benz-owner Daimler has taken a stake in Taxify in a funding round. Last year China’s Didi Chuxing, a rival of Uber, became an investor in the company.
According to FT, Didi also participated in the round, along with European venture capital fund Korelya Capital and TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus.
Daimler may roll the service into its moovel app, a step that would increase Taxify’s customer base by a quarter to 12.5 million.
Taxify was founded in 2013.

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