Max Whittaker/Reuters
Taxi drivers protest against transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft along with Assembly Bill 2293 at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California, June 25, 2014.
Executives at both GrabTaxi and OlaCabs, which are Asia-based companies that use taxis instead of private drivers, told BuzzFeed News they're working on "forming a global alliance of regional players."
These executives also suggested to BuzzFeed News that Softbank Capital - which has provided funding for both GrabTaxi and OlaCabs - is behind the potential alliance. Ron Fisher, a partner at Softbank Capital, told BuzzFeed he couldn't comment.
The potential alliance, which may serve to unify regional ride-hailing markets, "would include knowledge sharing and maybe cross-booking," Brian Cu, the co-founder of GrabTaxi, told BuzzFeed News. "If you're in the Philippines, you can book a GrabTaxi using the OlaCabs app; it's in the realm of possibilities, so maybe Softbank is trying to do that."
Oneal Bhambani, the CFO of Flywheel, which offers a similar taxi-hailing service and is based in San Francisco, told BuzzFeed News his company was also made aware of a potential alliance. Bhambani has apparently talked to teh CEOs of OlaCabs and GrabTaxi.
This alliance would rival on-demand ride-hailing juggernaut Uber, which operates in 53 countries and 200 cities and raised $1.2 billion in December at a $41 billion post-money valuation. To date, Uber has raised $3.3 billion in funding, and has proven itself to be more than just an on-demand car service startup: by dipping into experimenting with food delivery, moving, on-demand flu shots, and more, Uber could prove itself to be a large-scale dispatch and logistics company.
In a blog post announcing the company's latest round of funding, CEO Travis Kalanick said the new funding would be used to create more than 1 million jobs in 2015 and to "make significant investments, particularly in the Asia Pacific region."