SAN FRANCISCO, CA — (Marketwired) — 07/31/13 — Flywheel, the ride-for-hire app that integrates into existing taxis and fleets across the U.S., announces $14.8 million Series B funding. The round was led by new investor Craton Equity Partners as well as continuing participation from Series A investors, RockPort Capital and Shasta Ventures.
Flywheel will use the new financing to expand rapidly across the U.S., increase its users and partners, and continue offering seamless ride experiences through taxi fleets nationwide. The Flywheel service allows passengers to request a ride, track its arrival, and pay the driver — all with just a touch of their smartphone. In addition to a consumer and driving facing solution, Flywheel also provides an enterprise-grade cloud based dispatching system that is in use by hundreds of fleets nationwide.
“Our goal is to bring Flywheel consumers convenient, confident, cash-free access to the 5M taxi rides delivered every day by the nation-s taxi fleets,” said Steve Humphreys, CEO of Flywheel. “By bringing on whole fleets at a time, we can give our customers access to most of the taxis in a city in a matter of weeks. Flywheel is cutting down on congestion by working with existing, legally authorized fleets manned by professional drivers while disrupting the taxi industry from within. Our mission is to increase utilization of taxis already on the streets, getting more people around our cities with no additional congestion or pollution. It-s good for the city, good for the environment, good for our customers and good for the drivers.”
“Flywheel is rapidly transforming the $100 Billion taxi industry — providing licensed, professional drivers and taxis with its disruptive app and fleet-aware platform so that they may better compete with illegal, unregulated hired rides,” said David Asarnow, Partner at Craton Equity Partners. “Flywheel-s strategy aligns with our firm-s focus on environmental awareness and we believe that taking taxis to get around our cities is one of the greenest, most urban-friendly actions anyone can take. We-re pleased to participate in providing the capital to support Flywheel-s expansion plans, and look forward to assisting with the mass adoption of Flywheel-s service.”
In the past eight months, Flywheel rebranded (it was formerly called Cabulous) and overhauled both its Android and iPhone apps. New features include automatic payment and Foursquare integration that allows passengers to quickly select a pickup location. With well over half the taxis in San Francisco on its system and thousands of cabs nationwide, Flywheel-s proven service is expanding rapidly with the additional capital announced today.
The Flywheel app is available in the Apple App Store and on Android through Google Play. Follow on us on Twitter @FlywheelNow
With offices in San Francisco and Redwood City, Flywheel Software, Inc was founded in 2010 to provide an all-new experience to both passengers and drivers of for-hire vehicles. The Flywheel service includes a mobile app whereby its customers order taxi rides in real-time, track arrival via GPS and automatically pay their fare — all from their smart phone device.
Flywheel-s Investors include Craton Equity Partners of Los Angeles, Shasta Ventures, RockPort Capital, Sand Hill Angels and members of the Band of Angels. Flywheel can be found at
Lisa Tarter
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