Gett buys Juno, making your ride-hailing app choices a little less difficult
There soon will be one less ride-hailing app to choose from for those still boycotting Uber.
Gett, one of the largest players in the New York ride-hailing market, has acquired Juno for $200 million, TechCrunch reported Wednesday.
Gett will acquire all of Juno's existing business, including its network of drivers and its employees, according to TechCrunch's Ingrid Lunden, who spoke with Gett CEO and founder Dave Waiser.
Juno's founding team (Talmon Marco, Igor Magazinik, Ofer Samocha and Sunny Marueli) will stay based in New York and will lead Gett's future business in the U.S. Both Gett and Juno only operated in New York, for the U.S. market. Gett operates in more than 100 cities in Europe. Now, the combined companies have plans to expand into other states.
Gett also confirmed it will be raising more money. “This current deal provides a really enormous opportunity for expansion, so we’ll be looking for more capital this year,” Waiser told TechCrunch. Gett raised $300 million from Volkswagen last year.
The merger and new capital will help Gett compete against the ride-hailing giants in the United States: Uber and Lyft.
One of Juno's selling point to drivers was being much friendlier to and financially lucrative for drivers. The startup offered drivers stock units (something that obviously couldn't be forever sustainable). The stock options are nulled with the acquisition and will be paid out, TechCrunch reported.
That doesn't mean Gett and Juno will go full on Uber. They are considering other options to better compensate drivers.
Topics Uber New York City lyft
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
