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One more regional on-demand transport\u00a0startup is raising a big round of funding to fortify itself for the next phase of competition against the likes of Uber and incumbent taxi firms. Cabify, the ride-sharing startup that operates in Latin America, Spain and Portugal, has raised just under $100 million in new funding ($99,999,994 to be exact), according to a Form D\u00a0SEC filing<\/a>\u00a0for Maxi Mobility, as the company is officially called. The money is reportedly part of a total of $500 million that the company hopes to raise in a Series D round.<\/p>\n Juan de Antonio, Cabify\u2019s cofounder and CEO, declined to comment on the filing or its bigger fundraising effort when we contacted him.\u00a0\u201cNothing to comment. We are always raising capital. We will make an official announcement when we have something to share,\u201d he\u00a0said in an email to me.<\/p>\n However, about a month ago, he and other Cabify executives were quoted in an article in Brazilian publication Estadao<\/a> about how the company is raising $200 million specifically to expand nationwide in\u00a0Brazil \u2014 which gives a clue to where this funding is going and also to underscore that the $100 million from the Form D appears to be just one tranche of it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see more opportunities in Brazil and Latin America than in Europe,\u201d de Antonio told the publication. Cabify, which competes against Uber, 99 and Easy Taxi\u00a0in Brazil, currently has around a 40 percent share of the market in Sao Paolo, one of the seven cities where it already has operations in Brazil. It\u2019s live in 12 countries.<\/p>\n For its part, Cabify last raised $120 million at a $320 million valuation<\/a> almost exactly a year ago and has raised about $243 million to date<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cabify\u2019s\u00a0new funding was first spotted by Spanish blog Kippel01<\/a>\u00a0before getting picked up in English by Tech.eu<\/a>. Sources cited by Kippel01 say that\u00a0that it\u2019s part of a larger, $500 million Series D that the company is trying to raise.<\/p>\n We\u2019re asking around to see if we can confirm that larger total ourselves, but in the meantime, here\u2019s what the SEC filing tells us:<\/p>\n \u2014 Others listed on the filing, in addition to De Antonio, are AngelList COO Kevin Laws<\/a>, \u00a0Seaya Ventures\u2019 founder and managing partner Beatriz Gonazlez<\/a>, and Rakuten\u2019s investing arm\u2019s managing partner in Europe Oskar Mielczarek<\/a>. These three firms were all previous investors in Cabify.<\/p>\n \u2014 While Kippel01 claims all three are in this round, that may not be correct. The Form D notes that the $100 million comes from only one investor. We\u2019ve contacted Seaya and have not yet had a response, while\u00a0Rakuten, which led the last $120 million round, directed all questions to Cabify. We\u2019re also reaching out to AngelList when California wakes up to see if we can get any clarification from them.<\/p>\n The new funding comes on the heels of other regional leaders closing in on large funding rounds. Last week, we reported<\/a> that Indonesian Uber rival Go-Jek raised a $1.2 billion round at a $3 billion valuation. Grab, Uber\u2019s biggest rival in Southeast Asia, is reportedly raising $1.5 billion<\/a>. There\u2019s also been some regional consolidation. Last month, Gett acquired Juno for $200 million<\/a> to double down on growth in the U.S..<\/p>\n And in Latin America\u00a0specifically, Cabify\u2019s rival 99 in January raised $100 million<\/a> from China\u2019s Didi; and Rocket Internet\u2019s EasyTaxi has all but retreated from Asia to focus all of its resources and efforts on Latin America<\/a>.<\/p>\n For these regional companies, there is a window of opportunity right now: their biggest app-based rival, Uber \u2014 currently valued at $60 billion and active in hundreds of markets with a variety of services \u2014 has been facing a huge wave of negative publicity on the back of multiple reports\u00a0about how it\u00a0runs its business and the behavior of its executives. Many outraged by\u00a0the revelations\u00a0have been encouraging consumers to\u00a0#deleteuber, and it\u2019s been working<\/a>. So in\u00a0cities where Uber was already facing a lot of competition from local players, those rivals\u00a0are now seizing the moment to try to grow at a time when consumers may be considering Uber alternatives more than ever before.<\/p>\n Aside from this, there is evidence that Uber may not have the appetite for long-term, expensive competition in every single market, especially those where it\u2019s been outpaced by local rivals. Case in point is China, where Didi bought out Uber\u2019s business in the country last year<\/a>. That is another opportunity that local companies (and their investors) are sizing up.<\/p>\n Cabify is tapping into another interesting trend, which actually exists in other area\u00a0too like e-commerce and fintech. By putting a lot of focus on emerging markets, the company is hoping to ride the rising tide of a growing middle class with increasing amounts of disposable income (and smartphones) to spend on things like taxis.<\/p>\n But for the moment, the numbers are all still relatively small. Taking just one of its established cities, Sao Paolo in Brazil, today the total amount of spend across all<\/em> app-based transport services is estimated at just 1.5 million Brazilian reals, or $470,000. As a point of comparison, Uber globally in 2016 saw gross bookings of $20 billion. Focusing on specific regions rather than going for a larger economy of sale has a price.<\/p>\n For Cabify, the decision to tap newer markets in Latin America may not only be about going after emerging markets\u00a0with lower saturation of services, but also because of other competitive and regulatory issues in some of its more mature markets.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, nine Cabify cars were set on fire<\/a>\u00a0in the Spanish city of Seville. A Cabify spokesperson said that the police is still investigating who might have been behind the act, but also pointed out that it\u2019s been threatened before with those in support of rivals\u00a0\u201ctalking about doing this kind of stuff for years.\u201d<\/p>\n The cars that were torched had been\u00a0vehicles licensed to operate in another city, not Seville. Cabify tells me that they were brought to Seville (legally) as part of an effort to lay on more vehicles to meet increased demand temporarily during a city-wide festival.<\/p>\n The incident underscores the fact that in Spain, not all has gone smoothly for app-based transportation companies. In March, taxi drivers in Madrid and Barcelona went on strike<\/a> to protest the emergence of the new wave of private transport companies like Cabify and Uber.<\/p>\n Uber itself has been locked in a legal\u00a0case<\/a>\u00a0that started as a dispute with taxi unions in Barcelona and has now been escalated to the European Courts. It led to Uber suspending services in Spain temporarily, although some are back up and running again as the case continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uber rivals seize the day<\/h2>\n
Fighting fires<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/04\/cabify_executive.jpg?w=680\")
One more regional on-demand transport\u00a0startup is raising a big round of funding to fortify itself for the next phase of competition against the likes of Uber and incumbent taxi firms. Cabify, the ride-sharing startup that operates in Latin America, Spain and Portugal, has raised just under $100 million in new funding ($99,999,994 to be exact), according to a Form D\u00a0SEC filing\u00a0for Maxi… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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