June 22 (SeeNews) - Taxi e-hailing application mytaxi, owned by German car maker Daimler, acquired on Thursday Romanian taxi application Clever Taxi for an undisclosed sum.
With this acquisition, mytaxi has consolidated its presence in the international mobility market and strengthened its position in Europe, the two companies said in a joint press release.
You can subscribe to our M&A newsletter here
The parties to the deal had agreed not to disclose details of the transaction, but stated that the valuation was set at an eight-digit number.
For the time being the Clever Taxi brand will continue to exist, which means that the company's drivers and customers will be able to continue to use the service as they are currently used to.
"As the first taxi app in Romania with 17,000 drivers and 600,000 customers, Clever Taxi is the perfect fit for mytaxi. This latest acquisition underlines our ambitions in the development and growth of urban mobility in Europe," mytaxi CEO Andrew Pinnington said.
Clever Taxi was founded in 2010 by Mihai Rotaru and Alexandru Dumitru and operates in twenty major cities in the country. Since 2010 Clever Taxi has provided more than 40 million rides in the country, making it the largest e-hailing app in Romania.
"We look forward to working with the team to develop further innovative mobility solutions to both drivers and passengers. We also intend to develop a local Research and Development (R&D) center in Bucharest to provide mobility technology globally and hence we are currently hiring in all aspects of business and technology," Clever Taxi co-founder and CEO Mihai Rotaru said.
Romania will become the eleventh country in Europe in which mytaxi operates.
Launched in 2009, mytaxi was the world ́s first app offering a direct connection between taxi users and taxi drivers. With a global volume of more than 10 million downloads, over 120,000 registered drivers and an availability in more than 70 cities in ten - soon to be eleven - European countries, mytaxi is the frontrunner in the field of taxi booking apps.
With around 400 employees, mytaxi now spans across Germany, Austria, Poland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the UK, Ireland, Sweden and Greece. Since September 2014, mytaxi has been a subsidiary of Daimler Mobility Services GmbH, part of Daimler Group.