Daimler and carpooling.com forge strategic partnership

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Daimler AG is investing in the world’s leading ridesharing network, carpooling.com GmbH. The main shareholders will continue to be the company’s three founders, as well as venture capital firm Earlybird. The capital investment will serve primarily the development and expansion of carpooling.com’s mobility solutions.

carpooling.com is the world‘s leading ridesharing network with 4 million registered users, transporting 1 million people a month across Europe. The platform is available on the Internet, on smartphone apps and Facebook. The company possesses the most profound experience globally in bringing together ride-sharers for both medium- and long-distance trips, as well as for commuting. By reviewing profiles and ratings users know exactly who they are traveling with. In addition to rides, the company’s platform also offers bus, rail and airline tickets.

This strategic partnership bundles the know-how of two leading players in the mobility sector. In addition to its 126 years of expertise in automotive engineering and automotive systems applications, Daimler is also the market leader in fully flexible short-term car rental models with car2go which has over 130,000 customers and holds a share in MyTaxi since early 2012. In July 2012 Daimler launched the mobility platform moovel. Moreover, Daimler has gathered experience in the ride-sharing market in two pilot projects in Ulm and Aachen with its car2gether ad-hoc riding-sharing system.

The goal of the partnership is to further expand carpooling.com’s platforms and intelligently integrate the offerings within Daimler’s mobility solutions. The partners will be benefiting from each other’s experience in connection with customer needs, technical systems development, as well as in international rollouts of successful mobility concepts.

“We view ridesharing as an important element of intelligently networked mobility. Our engagement in carpooling.com is a logical step in offering our customers an even wider range for getting from Point A to Point B,” notes Wilfried Steffen, who heads up Business Innovation at Daimler AG. “We are pleased that this strategic partnership will enable us to support carpooling.com’s growth and further development.”

“We are very pleased that we were able to attract Daimler as an investor. As a leading automotive player Daimler will serve as a strong partner in further establishing the role of modern carpooling in Europe and overseas. We will be utilizing the new capital to further improve our offerings, broaden our customer service and make carpooling available to even more users worldwide,” is the way carpooling.com CEO Markus Barnikel explains the reasoning behind Daimler AG’s investment in the company.

In mid July 2012, both companies announced a technical cooperation for the pilot project moovel. The moovel mobility platform allows users to choose the best way to get from A to B in urban areas.

Credits: Daimler AG

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