minicabit, a UK-based online mini-cab price comparison and booking service, has secured GBP1.4 million in funding from some of the UK’s best known investors and business leaders.
The funding was heavily oversubscribed, led by Hambro Perks alongside the team at Oakley Capital. Hambro Perks recently backed Laundrapp, the on-demand app disrupting the dry-cleaning sector and will take a seat on minicabit’s Board, and Oakley Capital has previously advised on the flotation of JustEat and investment in The Hut Group. These high-profile investors include Rupert Hambro, one of the UK’s most respected merchant bankers, Dominic Perks, a serial entrepreneur and successful active investor Peter Dubens, founder of Oakley Capital, the leading asset management and advisory group.
Business leaders who participated include Adrian McAlpine, a Partner at Sir Robert McAlpine, one of the UK’s most well-established engineering and construction companies and the Sangster family, best known as leading thoroughbred racehorse owners and breeders. In its previous funding round, minicabit attracted the backing of Telefonica O2’s Wayra Fund, crowdfunding site Seedrs, investor syndicate Angels4Angels and was also the first mobile app to win offers on BBC TV’s ‘Dragons’ Den’, from three of the Dragons.
The cab industry is highly fragmented and still rooted in circulating printed flyers and taking bookings over the phone. However, thousands of Cab Operators risk being left behind as they struggle to respond to the rapid consumer shift into booking online. minicabit aims to be the answer, opening up its online booking platform on web, not just app, to cab fleets of all shapes and sizes, based not just in big cities but anywhere in the UK. The firm’s goal is to bring cab fleets higher value, pre-booked work to help them sustain their business and navigate them through the increasing technology penetration of their sector, for instance from technology-enabled rivals and, longer-term, driverless cars.
With this fresh funding, minicabit plans to double the number of its partner cab fleets in its national cab network over the next year from 700 currently, to account for about a quarter of all cab fleets in the UK. minicabit has already attracted 1 in 10 of the UK’s Cab Operators, covering more cities than any of its rivals, with 250 firms applying to join this year alone. Longer-term, minicabit will further diversify the range of vehicle types that can be booked on its platform to include, for instance, minibuses and stretch limos.
This new backing will also enable minicabit to meet growing demand from a wide range of sectors, including leading hotel groups and iconic tourist attractions, to feature minicabit on a white-labelled basis to service their customers’ first and last mile home. Over the last four years, a number of major blue-chip brands have signed partnership agreements. This year alone, minicabit concluded successful deals with Heathrow Airport, which integrated minicabit’s comparison and booking service into their own website, Barclays Pingit and Big Yellow Self Storage Plc, following longstanding partnerships with O2 Academy Group, London City Airport and Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.
minicabit has long supported customers’ needs to pre-book from a diversity of devices and this latest fundraising will accelerate its reach by enabling the firm to soon launch an app for tablets and the Apple Watch. minicabit customers can already book from the web on their office PC to an app on their mobile, with innovations that even support complex bookings with multiple stops or luggage categories.
minicabit has developed superior price-comparison technology that compares the most competitive fixed prices from Cab Operators based near an individual’s pickup point and destination. Whilst customers can be exposed elsewhere to the unenviable risks of metered pricing that rises throughout times of peak demand, minicabit is enabling Cab firms to offer ‘flash sales’ of discounted fares on its platform throughout the week, benefiting customers and maximising utilisation of their fleets.
Driven by its proven business model and compelling market proposition, minicabit is the only major player in the online cab space to have reached break even, having previously raised minimal start-up capital.The company is enjoying strong growth and success, with bookings and revenues up by 100% over the first half of this year. It has achieved this by also capitalising on the 30 million ‘out of town’ trips taken annually by cabs in the UK, which account for GBP1billion of the GBP9billion online cab market. This in turn is generating higher value work for the cab trade, with minicabit’s average booking of GBP40 being close to double that of many of its rivals. This new investment boosts minicabit’s capacity to achieve its projected annual UK revenues of at least GBP100 million by 2020.
The business was founded by Amer Hasan, ex-Global Head of Apps and Internet Partnerships at Vodafone. He was recently nominated for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, the benchmark for entrepreneurial success in the UK, backed by NatWest. minicabit’s Board benefits from Steven Norris, Former UK Transport Minister, as a Board Adviser, with Paul Lawton, O2 UK General Manager of Small and Medium Businesses and Hambro Perks’ Nick Wentworth-Stanley, a former CEO of the largest members’ agency at Lloyds of London, both serving as Non-Executive Directors.
Amer Hasan, CEO and founder of minicabit, says: “Cab bookings are now shifting online at a tremendous pace, driven by customer demand and technology advances. Far from seeing this as ‘game over’ for the Cab Operators, we think the game has only just begun! Some of the earliest UK entrants were perhaps armed with more money than sense, whereas minicabit has quietly grown its cab network, industry leading partnerships and superior online features to enable customers everywhere to pre-book a great cab deal on any device. I’m a passionate believer in ‘smart’ capital, and so this latest investment in minicabit from such a high-profile group of backers can enable us to empower Cab Operators UK-wide to take full advantage of the digital revolution.”
Rupert Hambro, former Chairman of Hambros Bank and co-founder of Hambro Perks, says: We at Hambro Perks are attracted to online businesses with high quality management that can unlock greater value for the sectors in which they operate. minicabit is a compelling investment proposition, given its distinct market position and the tremendous progress it has already made competing against larger rivals."
Chris Godsmark, Managing Partner at Oakley Capital, commented: “Oakley is focused on working with innovative businesses which address substantial market segments with the underpinning of strong and compelling platforms. Having reviewed the commercial and technology opportunities emerging in the ground transportation space, we believe that minicabit is set to be a clear winner.”
