To stay in competition against Uber, Lyft and SideCar, the Taxi E-hail start up is all set to launch in Los Angeles. The taxi hailing mobile application is growing rapidly, shooting up the no. of rides in last 2 months.
Flywheel is ready to enter new markets in coming months to ease the process of hailing a cab for consumers, simply from their mobile phones. Los Angeles is the next big market that has been targeted by the firm, where it already has 300 drivers lined up to start accepting rides through the application.
Under the leadership of Craton Equity Partners, in addition to participation from RockPort Capital and Shasta Ventures, Flywheel has successfully raised a $14.8 million Series B round. The money was acquired in order to expand Flywheel services to new markets and its expansion. Flywheel has successfully established the brand in smaller markets like Cleveland, Naples, Fla, Ohio, Daytona Beach, Lansing, Mich, Louisville, and Miami with an exception of San Francisco.
But now by bringing the service to Los Angeles it will turn out to be a boon for the potential customer base. Flywheel works with taxi fleets to enable e-hailing in various cities that it operates in, similar to the partnership between Uber and black car companies to get drivers for its mobile ride service. This has resulted in quickly turning up the service in L.A. from 0 to 300 in just 100 days, as reported by CEO Steve Humphreys.
After its launch in L.A., Flywheel will be coming up with electronic hails to taxis in market where consumers are already pretty accustomed to using their mobile phones for transportation. As Uber, Lyft and SideCar have already begun with their service in the city; they have already established themselves in the market to welcome enough competition for Flywheel.
Although Flywheel is launching its service in Los Angeles questions about the legality of ride sharing are still unanswered. However the California Public Utilities Commission has struck deals with Uber, Lyft, and SideCar that enables them to operate with proposed regulations to legitimize ride sharing in state. Local authorities in L.A. have made an attempt to Shut down all the services that allow the drivers without commercial licenses to get paid for providing rides to the passengers.
Flywheel is trying its best to position itself to be an alternative to the anarchy ride sharing and also reported in a press release that they are in contrast to several ride-sharing applications which are currently available and opting for a service that provides safe and reliable way to get around L.A.
Anyone from L.A., or San Fransisco or Oklahoma City must definitely try it out.