Taxify is officially our transportation partner, more details about the partnership closer to the event date but for now, find out more about this incredible Unicorn!
Taxify is the biggest European ridesharing platform, connecting over 15 million passengers and 500 thousand drivers in over 25 countries. The startup was founded in Estonia in 2013 and is backed by Daimler, with a $1B valuation. With setting its focus on Europe and Africa, Taxify became the leading ride-hailing platform in Africa in 2018. Taxify was founded by the brothers Markus Villig at the age of 19, and his brother Martin, who had worked for Skype. With being only 25 years old, Villig junior is one of the youngest heads of a billion-dollar company in the world. When being asked about their status as “UBER rival”, Villig told Bloomberg in an interview:
“We go into markets where ride-sharing is already a proven concept… we come in and we improve on that by having just cheaper commissions and giving more back to the riders and drivers…”
While governments still try to stop business models like Uber, the car-sharing model is environmentally sound and well accepted by society. Markus Villag quickly realized this trend, stating: “We’re on a mission to build the future of mobility, and it’s great to have the support of investors like Daimler and Didi. “This is just the beginning as more and more people give up on car ownership and opt for on-demand transportation.”
With car-sharing models experiencing such a great success, the next step could be to drive autonomously, empowered by A.I. and fully automatized by the blockchain. While this might sound too far fetched to some, we believe this could be part of our not-too-distant-future and we are looking forward to seeing a project like this popping up in the app store.