Hailo to come to an end as Daimler takes over

London taxi-hailing app Hailo has now been brought by Daimler who will look to shut down the Hailo brand and merge it was its own company MyTaxi. The company will look to rebrand by mid-2017 with Daimler owning 60% of the business and the remaining 40% being owned by Hailo stakeholders.

Hailo has been recognised on the streets of London since 2011 however it was created back in 2010 by a group of 6 including tech entrepreneurs and taxi drivers. The app was similar to the others on the current market allowing customers to book a taxi at the click of a button.

Hailo was popular within the city as it offered an ‘Uber-like’ service however using black cabs instead of private hire vehicles and its cofounders were able to build a close and positive relationship with London black taxi drivers.

As of 2013 Hailo tried to roll out the app service in New York however they failed to build a close relationship with the New York cab drivers as well as the more popular areas being dominated by the rival app Uber. Due to this Hailos New York adventure came to an abrupt end with The Independent reported in 2014 that the company had made losses of £21.5 million.

The App operates in other major cities across the UK and also in Ireland and Spain. MyTaxi also has a large base with its services currently available in Austra, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

On review on the app merging it is said that the MyTaxi brand will have 70 million passengers and 100,000 registered taxi drivers spread across 50 cities within nine European countries.

Head office will be moved to MyTaxis head office which is based in Hamburg, Germany with Hailo CEO Andrew Pinnington leading the new Company.