The German multinational automotive corporation Daimler, best know by their brand Mercedez Benz, has acquired one of the most powerful Greek startup Taxibeat, newsbeast.gr announced. Reportedly this startup was sold for EUR 40 million, but official announcements are expected in the coming days.
According to the Greek media, Taxibeat has more than 800.000 registered users and more than 15.000 cooperating taxis.
Daimler itself already has a similar application through which anyone interested can find the nearest vehicle to him. Reportedly, the application has far more than 10.000.000 downloads and over 45,000 taxis cooperating with spreading in more than forty cities in six countries.
Furthermore, this Germany-based giant has another travel service called car2go, the first free-floating car sharing system in the world that offers flexible mobility with smart for two vehicles, everywhere and at any time for a reasonable price in the inner city areas of various cities. This service is provided in 29 locations 8 European and South-American countries with participation by 75% of Daimler and 25% of Europcar, newsbeast.gr reported.
To date, Taxibeat had few attempts to enter into other markets outside Greece, such as Brazil, Romania, Scandinavia and Paris but failed to meet the requirements. Besides in Greece, Taxibeat at the moment operates in Lima, Peru which is the second country in which this startup is present.
Taxibeat is founded in 2011 by Nikos Dandraki with the participation of investor Apostolos Apostolakis. To date, they have received investments worth more than 8 million euros. The very first was in 2013, EUR 2.92 million from Openfund, and additional EUR 5.5 million by Hummingbird investment fund.
In regard to financial figures, Daimler’s revenue for 2015 group amounted to EUR 149 billion and employs more than 280,000 workers around the world.