The Tallinn, Estonia-based Taxify that builds global fleet management tools and mobile booking apps for taxi companies, has raised a seed round of USD100,000.
The investment comes from a several angel investors in the US, Asia and Estonia, including Märt Kelder, Martin Villig and Andrus Purde from the “Skype Mafia”, Toomas Bergmann, a cofounder of fleet tracking platform Navirec, and the Finnish serial entrepreneur, Mikko Silventola. Taxify had previously received a €5,000 grant from Enterprise Estonia.
The company launched in autumn 2013 and is already handling over 50,000 monthly bookings in Estonia and Latvia. With its current growth rate of 55% a month, it will use the seed funding to focus on eight new countries in Eastern Europe and Asia during 2014.
Taxify has built what it calls an “all-in-one solution for taxi companies.” Traditional taxi companies use Taxify’s web-based dispatcher and fleet management systems to manage their back-end and unite under Taxify’s consumer facing app to stay competitive against expanding networks like Hailo and Uber.
From the end user point of view, its app lets a booker choose a specific driver if they wish, with driver profiles including a photo, prices and feedback, rather than the user being automatically assigned a driver based on factors such as their closest location.
Since late 2013, Taxify has taken over 150,000 orders and is currently growing by 55% month over month, according to the company.
Is the investor the relative of the founder? Both have the last name Villlig.