Lyft -logo can be seen in this illustration on June 27, 2022.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Our Ride-Hailing Firm Lyft On Wednesday he announced that it is now buying the European Taxi app in a deal of 175 million euros ($ 199 million).
The company said that the acquisition – Lyft’s first in Europe – is expected to close in the second half of 2025, and that, once combined, the two companies will serve more than 50 million combined annual users.
Founded in 2009 as Mytaxi, Free Now is a Rit-Hailing Platform with head office in Hamburg, Germany. Since 2019, the company has been jointly owned by the German Automotive Giants BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
The app is available in more than 150 cities in nine countries, including Ireland, the UK, Germany and France. In addition to traditional taxi and ride-Hailing services, Free now also offers other mobility options, including e-scooters, e-mopeds and e-bikes.
The startup is a profit positive based on income before interest, debts and depreciation, so that gross bookings generate more than 1 billion euros in 2024, according to a company fact.
“This is time”
If you now acquire for free, Lyft will give a route to extend to the very competitive European Ride-Hailing market, where it meets people UberEstonia’s Bolt and Israel’s Gett.
David Rise, CEO of Lyft, told CNBC that the company is now coming in Europe because it saw an opportunity to expand after the service in North America steadily improving.
Risher noted that Thursday will mark his two -year anniversary as CEO of Lyft, “When I started, we unfortunately lost to the share, we lost money. We didn’t do it so great for riders or directors.”
“Now we pick you up about a minute faster, the driver’s cancellation is less than 5%, drivers earn billions of dollars on the platform. And our Canada operation doubled this year last year.”
He added: “So, looking at the strong service levels, looking at the fact that internationally, within Canada, we are doing reasonably well. Now we said:” Do you know what, now it’s time? “
The best domestic rival of Lyft, Uber, has a long lead on the company, after he was first launched in the UK in 2012. It has since been hit by a series of regulatory issues.
London’s transport regulations tried to ban Uber twice due to safety problems. The company eventually received a new license to continue to operate in the city in 2022.