Minicabit, an online mini-cab price comparison and booking service, has announced that it has raised further investment following an oversubscribed funding round in October.
Dominic Murphy, UK Head of KKR one of the biggest global buyout firms, and Marek Gumienny, former chairman of Candover Partners are among the named investors. This additional investment will help support minicabit’s drive to achieve its target of £100m in annual UK revenues by 2020.
This fresh investment builds on the £1.4 million minicabit secured in its most recent funding round led by Hambro Perks, whose portfolio includes disruptive on-demand dry-cleaning app Laundrapp, alongside the team at Oakley Capital, which previously advised on the flotation of JustEat and investment in The Hut Group.
Prior to this, minicabit attracted the backing of Telefonica O2’s Wayra Fund, crowdfunding site Seedrs, investor syndicate Angels4Angels and was also the first app to win offers on BBC TV’s ‘Dragons’ Den’, from three of the Dragons.
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Minicabit, which last month won ‘App of the Year’ at the Start-ups Awards 2015, will use this most recent funding to support its next phase of growth, including enhancing its innovative technology-enabled platform and app, implementing new initiatives to improve consumer choice and expanding its range of cab fleets UK wide.
The company has already attracted 1 in 10 of the UK’s Cab Operators, covering more cities than any of its rivals, with 250 firms applying to join this year alone. Longer-term, minicabit will further diversify the range of vehicle types that can be booked on its platform to include, for instance, minibuses and stretch limos.
The company is enjoying strong growth, with bookings and revenues up by 100% over the first half of this year. It is is the only major player in the online cab space to have reached break even, having previously raised minimal start-up capital.
Over the last four years, the company has signed partnership agreements with a number of major blue-chip brands, including Heathrow Airport, Barclays Pingit, Big Yellow Self Storage Plc, The O2 Arena and London City Airport.
Minicabit was founded by Amer Hasan, ex-global head of apps and internet partnerships at Vodafone, and the Company’s board includes leading British business figures.
Hasan said he was “delighted to have secured the support of two investors of the stature of Dominic and Marek”.
“We now have backing for the company from some of the UK’s smartest and savvy financial and tech investors which demonstrates their faith in minicabit’s distinct business model and belief that the firm will be one of the winners in the taxicab-tech arena,” he continued. “This will further our crusade to offer customers more choice whilst enabling cab operators UK-wide to enhance their businesses using our technology.”
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