RideCharge snags $4.6M for business travel apps

February 18, 2009 | Camille Ricketts | Comments | |

Ever feel the need to book your ground transportation from the airport while you’re still sitting on the runway? Or pay a taxi fare with a click of one button? Maybe not. But that’s the concept behind RideCharge, maker of TaxiMagic — an app that lets business travelers book and pay for ground transportation from their mobile phones (iPhones, Blackberrys and phones running Windows Mobile, for now). The Alexandria, Va.-based company just brought in $4.6 million in second-round funding to bolster its marketing campaign.

Most of the new funds came from Concur Technologies, an automated travel company that can make restaurant reservations via OpenTable, save airport parking spots through Park N Fly, and connect travelers with rental car, hotel and rail reservations through a variety of vendors. Concur’s mobile technology also provides users with e-receipts for any purchases made on their phones with its services. This goes for TaxiMagic too. When the meter registers a final fare, users hit one button to automatically pay the driver, and a receipt is delivered to their inbox as a PDF file.

RideCharge says this service is currently available in 30 U.S. cities, where it works with many large taxi, sedan and shuttle companies. In addition to booking and payment capabilities, TaxiMagic lets users track the GPS location of cars they have ordered. The app has been downloaded about 10,000 times per week since its launch last June, the company says.

The recent investment round was led by Concur and included an undisclosed venture firm and unnamed angel backer. RideCharge has raised $8.5 million to date, which its executives say may be enough to last it to profitability by the end of 2009. With only 15 employees and no formidable competitors, this looks like a reasonable enough goal.

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About the Author, Camille Ricketts

Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

With GreenBeat 2009, VentureBeat's all-star conference on all things Smart Grid, coming up in November, Camille will be expanding coverage of this exciting space. Stay up to date by following @greenbeat2009 on Twitter or by becoming a fan of the event on Facebook here.

  • What a waste! There are free apps that do the same.
  • And pls fix the hotlink from vortexportal.com, it looks ugly.
  • This is just a crazy amount of money to be giving a company like this!
  • Chris Butler
    @Yuri, this is a free app that offers more functionality that the others I have seen.

    I believe this is the only app that will electronically book a taxi via the iPhone if they have a partner in that area. All of the other apps are just listings of phone numbers which don’t allow electronic booking.

    I use it in SF and it works great (they partnered with Luxor). In South of Market I used to have to wait at least 15-30 minutes for a cab (I guess they didn't like my neighborhood) if I called and they would actually show up. Now, they get there in under 5-10 minutes.

    It is one of the apps I use the most right now all over the city. Depending on your city, your mileage may vary.

    Great service, though they could fix up their app a bit it doesn't exactly follow the Apple Mobile HIG... :-)

    Now, 4.6 mil for this? That might be a bit high, especially because another company could probably move in and just partner with the "other" cab companies in each market to get similar coverage. Based on the research I have done regarding paratransit (taxis, limos, shuttles, etc.), I have found that people rarely care about the cab company itself, but do care about its reliability and features (CC for example).