Gett : Online Taxi Service, Making the Lives of Israeli People Easier
Have you ever noticed that the majority of the successful start-ups have emerged out during the time of crisis? Bored with the monotonous life, saying no to 9to5 jobs, addicted to gaming, and in this case, a 30 long minutes waiting for a taxi resulted in a successful story of getting a Taxi. We all have heard about the famous online cab hiring companies, like Grab, Uber, Lyft, which are majorly dominating in the United States. But, Gett is an Israel based start-up, launched in 2010, not only used for customer’s transportation but also couriers.
Shahar Waiser and Roi More are the two entrepreneurs, who created the Gett app for people of Israel and expanded it to Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It was in the year 2009 when Waiser decided to open his own company when he became tired of waiting for a taxi for more than 30 minutes. Since Waiser was already good at doing business; the journey wasn’t that hard for him at all.
Shahar Waiser
Before further confusion arises, Shahar Waiser and Dave Waiser are the names of a single person, that is, founder of Gett. He completed his education in Computer Science from The Academic College of Tel-Aviv, Yaffo. Waiser mainly focused on learning Java, and Gett was not his first startup. Before Gett, he founded Infoauto, an online service that provided information about used cars and real estate. He created Infoauto while studying in college, and it became the first and largest company for classifieds informational system. Later, it was acquired by MARAM Group.
In April 2001, Waiser became the first CEO of Comverse, a company dealing with mobile data, telecommunication and related things. He then moved to Moscow and worked there for the Russian Federation and also received the “President Annual Sales Award”.
After leaving Comverse in March 2005, he founded Loyalize. Waiser designed a Social TV solution that dealt with real-time management that can be used by millions at a time. This product was used during the times of Oscars, Grammys, and many such prestigious awards, and even, got featured in Forbes as one of the topmost entertaining technologies. Later, it was acquired by Function(x).
Before launching GetTaxi, Waiser already became famous due to his smart inventions and entrepreneurial skills. Gett success emerged out as the brightest solution to the poor transportation condition of Israel, followed by becoming a very profitable company.
Roi More
More completed his graduation from Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and passed out in 2002 with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Apart from co-founding Gett, More also founded Kamay Holdings (later acquired by 888.com) and MyLotto.com.
Success of Gett
Waiser started his work in 2009 and released the beta version of the app in Hebrew, which only operated in the area of Tel-Aviv. The company was officially launched on 1 November 2010 and eventually, expanded to London in 2011. In 2012, GetTaxi expanded to Moscow as well and opened their first United States office in the city of New York. The company raised $30 million in the funding round held in June 2012, in addition to which, an American Billionaire offered $9 million to help Gett enter the U.S market. The company operates as Juno in New York.
In 11th April 2016, Gett launched the new feature of splitting the payment among six people at the max. This definitely increased the number of booking, as it was more affordable. The biggest news of Gett, in 2016, was its partnership with Volkswagen Group, which helped Gett raise $300 million only from this partnership.
In June 2018, the company raised more than $80 million from its existing investors, Volkswagen Group, private firm Baring Vostok Capital Partner, and the American billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries. By 2018, the company raised $700 million in total and sales rides worth more than $1 billion. Among all the markets, Gett doing business in the New York market is expanding exponentially with approximately 45,000 drivers. This was closely followed by the London market, where most of the black cabs available were doing business with Gett.
Today, Gett is available in more than 120 cities, used by 20,000 companies worldwide to transport goods and couriers. The last round of funding helped Gett achieve the status of Unicorn, which is really a great success for any company.
The company is also focused on making rides more eco-friendly, hence reducing the dead mileage. Gett also invests in R&D significantly to use more recycled products.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more