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Unlike U.S.-based ride hailing start-up Uber [UBER.UL], which
established itself to compete against taxi companies, the new
company will operate using taxi firms.
It is the latest push by traditional carmakers to enter the taxi
ride hailing services market dominated by Uber and other
technology companies.
The companies declined to disclose financial terms.
"It's a paper deal. Daimler will own 60 percent of the new
entity and the stakeholders in Halio will own 40 percent," said
Halio CEO Andrew Pinnington, who will be chief executive of the
combined company.
The merged entity, which will operate under the mytaxi brand,
will have 70 million passengers and 100,000 registered taxi
drivers in over 50 cities across nine countries in Europe, the
companies said.
In similar deals this year, Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE> took a $300
million stake in Gett and General Motors <GM.N> invested $500
million in Lyft.
Hailo, which operates in Britain, Ireland and Spain, will
combine with myTaxi, which is available in Austria, Germany,
Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
The combined company will be headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.
MyTaxi founder Niclaus Mewes will take a seat on the supervisory
board and in addition he will become managing director of
Daimler Mobility Services GmbH.
Sky News was first to report the potential combination of MyTaxi
and Hailo.
(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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