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taxify

Taxify- The best transportation platform that enabled cash-free rides for the first time in the world

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The bolt which is previously known as Taxify is today a well-known transportation platform in Estonia. With its miscellaneous service, Taxify is working in over 35 countries and 150+ cities. The service ranges from food delivery, ride-hailing, micro-mobility, etc. It is set up in 2013, while in a short period the firm acquired more than 30 million customers all over the world. Also, Bolt gave an excellent platform for 1 million+ drivers to find the rides easily. Under the guidance of Markus Villig, the firm expanded its business in many countries. Includes, Australia, Europe, North America, and West Asia.

What is Taxify?

Taxify is Europe based start-up that provides an excellent transportation platform. The company is later on renamed as Bolt. Ride-hailing, food delivery, and micro-mobility are its well-known services. As well, the company’s Bolt app-enabled to get rides with just a few clicks on smartphones. Presently, the app runs on almost all OS including, iOS, Android, and Windows.

In fact, the best thing about this app and other services of Bolt, customer safety is on top. All the drivers get the licenses after a complete background check. However, to call a ride is as easy as safe with the Bolt app. The user has to put all details like dropping point, destination, and then can request a ride. After confirmation from the driver, the ride is all set to go.

Glimpse to Founder’s Life- Markus Villig

In London, at the time when people afraid to take Uber ride, Markus set up Taxify. A transportation platform that turned out as a trustworthy platform. When Villig was 19, he aimed to develop the best platform for taxis in Estonia, and Tallinn. And so, he did it with setting up Taxify in 2013. Under his policies, the business of the firm grew rapidly and it acquired many customers. Today, it is a billion-dollar firm providing employment to more than 1 Lakh drivers. As well, it acquired over 5 Million satisfied customers.

He is presently CEO of the company, who is well known as one of the youngest CEOs of Europe. Forbes included Markus’s name on the list of 30 under 30 in the category of Youngest Tech CEO in Europe.

The Backstory of Foundation

At the age of 12, a normal adult is dreamt of having fun and enjoying life. While Markus Villig who is the founder of Taxify dreamed to set up the tech start-up. Following his dream, he plunged into entrepreneurship when he was just 19 years old kid. At that time, Villig was studying at the University of Tartu as a computer science student. But he left the college after completing one semester and focus on his company. In 2013, when he set up the company, he took a loan of €5,000 from his parents.

The vision behind the formation of Taxify was to avail the platform for Riga and Tallinn taxi drivers. Earlier, Villig’s parents helped him in the company work. They handled customer support by themselves. However, Markus hired one developer so that the business can be explored further.  With all efforts, finally, the service was launched in 2013.

Exploring The Business

Taxify a European start-up started by 19 years old Markus, turn out like a billion-dollar company in just six years. In a few years, the company also started the service in London. Earlier, it acquired a local taxi company in London and offered the operating license. But unfortunately, it had to shut down the service in London.

However, the strong determination and clear vision of Markus helped to raised the business despite all odds. Soon the company applied for a new license and re-launched the service in London.

After that, Taxify explored the service in another part of the country including Lisbon, and Paris. In 2018, the firm expanded its business into Dockless Electric Scooters by launching them into Paris. It was the first time for the company to launch under a brand name called ‘Bolt’. Also, it was the time when Taxify rise as a first-ever platform that integrates these with ride-hailing service. Yet, the best part was all these can operate with a single app.

Taxify jumped into other businesses

As of 2019, Taxify announced two services. One of them is the Bolt Food delivery service and another is the Green Plan. The first service, Bolt Food has launched in Tallinn and thereafter explored in another part of Europe. However, the Green Plan deals with reducing adverse effects on the environment due to the transportation industry. Especially, focusing on offsetting the contribution to the CO2 emission caused due to Bolt transportation service.

Achievements of Taxify

The company named many honors since its foundation. It launched the transportation app that became the first such app in the world which enabled cash-free rides. As well, it was the second company in South Africa to launch a travel app. Also, Taxify enabled the first platform that integrated other services with ride-hailing platform.

As of 2020, the firm was ranked third in the FT 1000. It honored as Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies 2020 as per the Financial Times.

Zoomcar

The American Duo Launches Zoomcar i.e A Self-Drive Car Rental Start-Up In India

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American start-up culture is more developed than the Indian start-up culture. Recently India is making big news on this ground. But, the start-up ecosystem has not been this strong in our nation since the beginning. It took years for entrepreneurs and visionaries to establish a rigid concept of start-ups in India and eradicate the orthodoxy.

Since India is just at a budding stage for young entrepreneurs to shine, the potential is extremely high. So many business ideas and resources are left unturned. But, a perfect business mind always finds a path to achieve the goal.

The unexplored market of India attracted the American duo to our nation and establish a start-up. Greg Moran and David Back were fascinated by the potential business market in the field of transportation in India. They decided to open a business for car rentals and kudos they made it. They founded Zoomcar in February 2013 through the market research that was going for a long time.

About the Founders of Zoomcar

Greg Moran went to the University of Pennsylvania and acquired his bachelor’s degree in international relations. During his time at this university, he worked as a summer associate in Cerberus Capital Management. After graduating, he joined Fieldstone Capital Private Group as an analyst and worked there for almost two years.

Before pursuing his master’s he worked at International Power America for a year. In 2011, he joined USC Marshall School of Business for acquiring his MBA. Greg worked as FloDesign Wind Turbine as a summer associate in 2012. While pursuing his MBA, he developed a very keen interest in the market of India. Hence, one fine day he decides to fly to India with David and plan a business.

David has a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania. He also went to Harvard Law School and he completed his MBA from Cambridge University. In 2006, he worked as a summer research intern at the American Enterprise Institute. He also has teaching experience at the University of Pennsylvania.

David also has working experience at McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs. He resigned from Zoomcar in 2015 and joined Idein Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence. He was a speaker at The London Speaker Bureau for four years and in 2019 he became the managing partner of Icarus Ventures.

The Beginning

Intrigued by the potential of the Indian market, Greg, one day decided to take a vacation and explore business opportunities. David accompanied him. It seems Greg saw a huge scope in the car rental sector and started planning seriously about it. The duo was in a dilemma between the transportation business and renewable energy space but decided to pick the former one.

Honestly, the obstacles were immeasurable. They faced a lot of problems initially which included getting a license in the first place. Greg received the seed funding, everything was ready but at the eleventh hour, they weren’t given the permission to have a license. It was a do or die situation for them, but they managed to sign in a deal with someone already having a license. The entire procedure wasn’t a piece of cake but the business kicked off really well.

Investors and Partnerships

The initial investors of Zoomcar include Lawrence Summers, Lady Barbara Judge, William P. Alford, and many more. Some famous companies Zoomcar raised funding from are Mahindra&Mahindra, Ford Motor Company, Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners, Funders Club, Athene Capital, and etc. To date, Zoomcar has raised total funding of 673 crores.

Throughout this journey of seven years, Zoomcar has established a firm relationship with Mahindra and Ford. Zoomcar in association with Uber has also launched some campaign increasing driving awareness among the public.

Success

Both David and Greg had to overcome a lot of struggles to make Zoomcar a huge success. Firstly, it was a big challenge to make people believe that they were serious about the start-up. Because most of them thought it was just a plan which will never come into play. And, licensing was another nightmare for the company.

But, Zoomcar currently witnesses over 5,000 bookings per day. Their next target is to make 8,000 cars on the road turn to 25,000 cars on the road.

Both the co-founders think that users will increase at a rate more than twice in the following years. Because a good part of India’s population consists of adults aging between 25-30 who believe more in experimenting than having an asset. So, anytime they will pick a car rental service rather than buying one.