Dublin-based iCabbi buys UK firm as it drives forward with international growth

21 Jan 2016

iCabbi has ambitious plans to grow in the UK and the US

Dublin taxi dispatch technology company iCabbi is targeting revenues of €15m as part of its move into the US and UK markets.

The company has acquired UK company Disc for €1.2m to fuel its UK expansion.

iCabbi, which announced 20 new jobs in Howth in December 2015, is planning to take on Hailo and Uber by providing the same kind of technology to private taxi companies.

The new jobs it announced in December are spread across research and development, customer service, sales and marketing and technical support.

It is already used by 70pc of large Irish taxi companies with fleets of 50 or more cars.

iCabbi driving forward with international expansion

In the US, it has gone live with 17 companies, with 2,000 cars running the technology and plans to expand rapidly there. It has 30 more companies covering 10,000 cars scheduled to go live this year. The company expects its US revenues to hit €3.6m by the end of 2016.

iCabbi has also established a strong presence in the UK, with more than 50pc of large taxi companies, defined as those with 500-plus cars, using its software.

It purchased Disc (formerly Solution Telecom), which has been developing telephony solutions the for taxi industry since 2010, in a deal worth €1.2m, in order to expand further into the UK market.

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Richard Watson, investment manager, Dublin BIC, and Gavan Walsh, founder and CEO, iCabbi

iCabbi’s fully cloud-based end-to-end solution connects drivers with passengers looking for a taxi, in a similar way to Hailo and Uber, allowing taxi companies to compete with the online taxi giants.

The system includes a customer booking app, website booking engine, a ‘track my taxi’ feature, automated phone system and SMS text backup.

The company has achieved growth levels of 300pc in the past year, fuelled by earlier seed funding rounds totalling €1m led by Dublin BIC, co-fund manager of the AIB Seed Capital Fund.

“We are expanding our presence and growing our team due to the incredible demand for our systems,” said iCabbi founder and CEO Gavan Walsh.

“With the support of Dublin BIC, AIB Seed Capital Fund, Enterprise Ireland and the Halo Business Angel Network (HBAN), we have set ambitious but pragmatic targets to become the largest technology provider to taxi companies in Ireland, the UK and the US.”

New York taxi image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com