Easy Taxi raises $10 million to fuel global expansion

Company raised $15 million a month ago, will be expanding to Africa and the Middle East

Only a month after raising its last round of funding, Brazilian e-hailing service Easy Taxi is back with even more money.

The company has raised a new $10 million round of funding, it was announced Wednesday. The round was led by previous investors Rocket Internet and the African Internet Holding. This new money comes only a month after Easy Taxi raised a $15 million round of investment from Latin America Internet Holding, and it brings the company's total funding to $25 million.

In addition to the funding news, the company also announced that it will be expanding to new markets, namely those in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The new expansion starts on Wednesday in Nigeria, and the company promises that more countries will follow soon.

“The Easy Taxi app is convincing in every single aspect: it is fast, safe and working in a very smooth way. It fulfills all the needs for the African market. We see an amazing opportunity and we will expand fast to all the markets where we are present today with the startups of Africa Internet Holding," Sacha Poignonnec, co-CEO of the African Internet Holding, said in a statement.

Easy Taxi works a lot like Hailo. Using the Easy Taxi app, which is on iOS, Android and BlackBerry, customers confirm their pickup point and order a cab. Users get the name, photo and car model/plate of their driver, and are also able to follow the vehicle’s location in real-time as it approaches.

Founded in 2011, the São Paulo, Brazil-based app has over 1,500,000 downloads and more than 45,000 taxi drivers in the network. 

The company currently operates in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, South Korea and Venezuela. 

A big part of Easy Taxi's success, it seems, has been from cornering the market in spaces that have been ignored by other e-hailing services. But that might not be the case for long, especially in Asia, where Uber has begun to make a big push.

The company has begun rolling out its service in three Asian locations in six months: first launching in Singapore in January, then in Seoul and Taipei in June.

Money in e-hailing

Easy Taxi seems to be raking in the money these days, but other e-hailing services have also recently raised funds.

In December, London-based Hailo raised a $30 million Series B round at a $140 million valuation, led by Union Square Ventures, bringing the company's total to over $50 million in funding.

Uber has raised over $57 million, most recently a $37 million Series B round led by Shervin Pishevar’s Menlo Ventures, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Goldman Sachs in September 2012.

The company is reportedly looking to raise an unspecified amount of new financing, which could potentially be in the hundreds of million.

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