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Hailo was a British technology platform that matched
taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...
drivers and passengers through its
mobile phone application A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
. Founded in London in 2011, the Hailo taxi service was available in 16 cities (as of December 2013). By May 2013, Hailo had enabled more than three million rides for passengers from over 30,000 registered taxi drivers. The Hailo Passenger App was available as a free download from the
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and
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...
for both
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and Android devices. In late 2016 Hailo was absorbed by
myTaxi FREE NOW is a mobility service provider headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. FREE NOW was formed in February 2019 from a joint venture between BMW and Daimler Mobility. Thomas Zimmermann is CEO of the FREE NOW Group. The FREE NOW Group is the vehi ...
, a German e-hailing company belonging to Daimler Financial Services, to form the largest e-hailing operator. The resulting company, branded
mytaxi FREE NOW is a mobility service provider headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. FREE NOW was formed in February 2019 from a joint venture between BMW and Daimler Mobility. Thomas Zimmermann is CEO of the FREE NOW Group. The FREE NOW Group is the vehi ...
, is based in Hamburg. By July 1, 2019 mytaxi was rebranded to Free Now serving over 100 European cities including Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Paris, and London. Free Now customer care and support teams operate from Dublin, Hamburg, Madrid, Warsaw among other European countries.


History

Hailo began in late 2010, after a meeting between three London taxi drivers and three technology
entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
, including co-founders Jay Bregman, CEO, Ron Zeghibe, Executive Chairman, Caspar Woolley, Chief Operations Officer, and Russell Hall, Gary Jackson, and Terry Runham, Driver Community Leaders. On November 1, 2011, Hailo officially launched to passengers in London. By the end of 2012, Hailo had launched in Dublin, Boston, Toronto, and Chicago, but by late 2014 had discontinued services in North America.


Funding

To date, Hailo has raised approximately $125.1 million in funding. Hailo received $3.0 million in two tranches of Seed round funding in 2011. In March 2012, Hailo received $17m in Series A round funding led by
Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...
. The round also included contributions from both Atomico and Wellington Partners. A $30.6m Series B investment round was secured in December 2012, led by
Union Square Ventures Union Square Ventures (USV) is an American venture capital firm based in New York City. The firm has backed more than 130 startups, including Twitter, Etsy, Stripe, Coinbase, Zynga, Tumblr, Stack Overflow, Meetup, Kickstarter, MongoDB, Flurry, ...
. Contributions were also made by Japanese mobile telecoms group
KDDI () is a Japanese telecommunications operator formed on October 1, 2000 through the merger of DDI Corp. (Daini-Denden Inc.), KDD (Kokusai Denshin Denwa) Corp. (itself a former listed state-owned enterprise privatized in 1998), and IDO Corp. It h ...
and business magnate
Sir Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...
.


Cities

Notes #Includes $0.50 mandatory state surcharge #Translates to ''The App for Taxis in Barcelona'' #Marketed in both English and French #Translates to ''The App for Taxis in Madrid'' #Atlanta, Tokyo, and the remainder of Ireland are currently locations that Hailo plans on serving in the future. #Hailo shuttered its North American operations in late 2014 in Canada and the US citing low profits and increased competition from Uber and Lyft - http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hailo-taxi-app-to-close-up-shop-in-toronto-and-montreal-1.2798283


Mobile application and e-hailing

A survey conducted by Hailo found that cab drivers spend an average of 40-60 percent of their time looking for fares. The Hailo mobile e-hail application uses mobile and
GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
technology to match taxi drivers with passengers based on both availability and proximity. Hailo passengers make two taps on the Hailo smartphone app in order to request and confirm their e-hail. Once a driver has electronically accepted a passenger, the waiting passenger is sent an updated time of arrival based on route information and real-time traffic information. Customers also have the ability to specify if they require a wheelchair-accessible vehicle or a fixed price fare to designated location such as an airport terminal, where permitted. The Hailo driver app includes social networking features, which allows drivers to alert each other of locations with high street fare demand, traffic conditions, speed traps and road construction obstacles. Both the Hailo passenger and driver apps are compatible with both
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and Android mobile devices.


Mobile commerce

Hailo enables its registered passengers to e-hail, pay and tip for taxi journeys using the credit or debit card details they have stored within Hailo's secure cloud wallet. In some city locations, taxi drivers can also use Hailo to process credit and debit card payments for street hail fares by manually entering passenger card details when they reach their destination. Instant trip receipts are sent to passengers by email and contain journey and payment information along with instructions to help retrieve any property lost or forgotten in the taxi.


Legal proceedings

In February 2013, Black Car Assistance Corporation and Livery Roundtable filed a lawsuit against the
taxi and limousine commission A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...
to prevent e-hailing companies from expanding to New York City. In April 2013, a judge dismissed the lawsuit and Hailo won the right to begin an e-hail beta trial. The decision was subsequently appealed. After a second temporary restraining order was issued against the pilot program, Hailo became the only taxi-hailing app-maker to join the lawsuit in support of the city. On 30 July 2021 Southcab Ltd Acquires the UK trademark Hailo which they would be running alongside their website Urban Taxi


References

{{reflist https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00003612177 Transport companies established in 2011 Taxis 2011 establishments in England Ridesharing companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in London