Germany-based car maker Daimler has invested $10m in a series C round for Carpooling.com, the largest ride-sharing service provider in Europe and which now plans to expand into North America.
The main shareholders in Carpooling, formerly known as Mikini Media, will continue to be the company’s three founders (Michael Reinicke, Matthias Siedler and Stefan Weber), as well as an undisclosed amount from venture capital firm Earlybird, which initially invested in 2009 and last year.
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 more than 130,000 customers. Since early this year, Daimler has also held a share in MyTaxi.
Earlier this month, Daimler launched the mobility platform moovel. Moreover, Daimler has gathered experience in the ridesharing market in two pilot projects in Ulm and Aachen with its car2gether ad-hoc ridesharing system.
Wilfried Steffen, head of business innovation at Daimler, said:
“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.”