US-based ride-hailing service HopSkipDrive closed a $7.4m funding round on Tuesday led by school bus contractor Student Transportation.
Investment firm Skyview Capital and venture capital firms FirstMark Capital, Upfront Ventures and Halogen Ventures also participated in the round, as did a range of unnamed investors.
HopSkipDrive enables parents to schedule rides and carpools for their children to take them to and from school, or to drive them to after-school activities. All its drivers have at least five years of childcare experience and go through several rigorous background checks.
The service has directly partnered more than 200 schools and non-profit organisations, and its drivers currently cover more than 2,500 schools across Los Angeles, Orange County and San Fransciso’s Bay Area.
The funding will help HopSkipDrive grow its presence both in existing and new locations as it seeks to scale its operations. The startup will collaborate with Student Transportation to offer more efficient solutions in places where there are insufficient pupils to justify a bus.
Denis Gallagher, founder, chairman and chief executive of Student Transportation, will join HopSkipDrive’s board of directors in conjunction with the round.
The deal follows a $10.2m series A round closed by the company in January 2016 that featured BBG Ventures, a corporate venturing unit set up by online media company AOL that has since been restructured into mass media group Oath.
The series A round was co-led by VC firms FirstMark Capital and UpFront Ventures, and included incubator 1776 as well as venture firms Greycroft Partners and Pritzker Group.
BBG Ventures previously took part in a $3.9m seed round in 2015 led by Upfront Ventures, with contributions from FirstMark Capital, Maveron and angel investor Joanne Wilson, as well as undisclosed backers.
Denis Gallagher said: “Our investment puts us in great company with a visionary, entrepreneurial CEO, plus an exciting, innovative management team.
“We know they are excited as well to benefit from our expertise, our infrastructure, and valued core competencies in safety, maintenance, procurement and fleet management, let alone the ability to assist them in scaling the business as part of our investment.”