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ingogo closes $12 million Series C funding round making it the second largest equity crowd funded deal in the world

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Australian taxi app and integrated mobile payment provider ingogo recently successfully closed a $12 million Series C funding round, ahead of its plans to list on the ASX in 2016.

More than one third of the total round ($4.2 million) was placed through VentureCrowd, making it the largest equity crowdfunded deal in Australia and the second largest in the world (compared to the last Forbes list of equity crowdfunding campaigns).

As far as why they decided to work with VentureCrowd, ingogo founder and CEO Hamish Petrie (left) highlighted that the equity crowdfunding platform is run by Artesian who run a range of sidecar funds, including the Sydney Angels Sidecar Fund that was one of the early investors in ingogo.

“They have been incredibly supportive of our business through its many stages,” he told Anthill. “They have a broad range of sophisticated investors across their funds and VentureCrowd offered the greatest access to qualified investors. This was reflected in both the raises we have completed with them.”

This tax app has had the foot firmly on the gas

ingogo has now raised more than $28 million in its short three year history – an incredible start-up feat – attracting both Australian and offshore institutional investors as well as some of Australia’s leading family offices and tech investors to its register.

Everyone wants a piece of this hot pie!

With over 5,000 active drivers, and growth in revenue by a whopping 464 per cent in FY14, ingogo is now clearly the fastest growing integrated mobile payments provider in the Australian taxi market.

The latest Macquarie Bank Taxi Tracker data, released in late February, suggests that the start-up, which featured in the Deloitte’s Fast 50 Rising Star awards, has become the third largest player in the taxi mobile payment space, with its market share growing to 11 per cent from 8.5 per cent in October 2014.

Its mobile app allows passengers to communicate directly with registered taxi drivers in their local area, see where their driver is and their estimated arrival time, with the option to pay using ingogo’s secure in-taxi payment terminals or virtual mobile accounts.

Hamish proudly stated that for taxi users, ingogo is now the clear, leading alternative to Cabcharge and the incumbent taxi networks. Drivers enjoy the latest payments capability married to a leading app-based booking platform, available on iOS and Android handsets.

What will ingogo use this $12 million funding for?

The capital raised will be used to accelerate the marketing rollout of ingogo’s newly revamped taxi booking app and to support the growth of their driver base and national rollout beyond Sydney and Melbourne into Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

The taxi app now includes a market leading corporate feature that provides business users with a seamless booking and expense management platform, partnering with expense management platform, Concur (a subsidiary of SAP).

The funding will also support the ramp up of ingogo’s mobile payments system for small businesses, in partnership with cloud accounting platform Xero, as ingogo adapts its technology to take on new verticals outside of the taxi industry.

Suitable for businesses who need to make payments while out on the road, ingogo provides a seamless payment solution that integrates and reconciles with their Xero accounts in real time.

Hamish remarked that the latest funding was made possible by his company’s highly disruptive business model and proven high growth.

“It’s exciting to be at the forefront of innovation in Australia and to be growing so rapidly. As ingogo has grown from a start-up to a high-growth and disruptive technology company, we see huge opportunities in the broader mobile payments space through our integration capability.”