Company: Kapten
Founder: Omar Benmoussa, Othmane Bouhlal and Yannick Hascoet
Website:
听Business: An online ride-hailing platform, offering on-demand taxi services.
About Kapten
Founded in 2012, Kapten is an on-demand ride-hailing platform operating in France, the UK, Switzerland and Portugal. The startup offers rides from as little as 拢5, and a loyalty programme including boosted referral bonuses and free rides. Users simply have to open the app, enter in their destination and wait for a driver to pick them up – average waiting times being less than 5 minutes.
Kapten are also one of Uber鈥檚 well-known rivals, picking up headlines from City A.M. 鈥�How Kapten is trying to take Uber鈥檚 ride-hailing crown鈥� and the Londonist 鈥淎 Cheaper Rival To Uber Has Just Launched In London鈥nd It Pays Its VAT鈥� 鈥� the latter referring to HMRC鈥檚 investigation into Uber due to allegations that the startup owes a near 拢1 billion in VAT.
鈥淲e took on Uber quite directly with our launch ad campaign鈥� general manager for Kapten UK Mariusz Zabrocki commented, 鈥渨e had a billboard at Leicester Square that said 鈥榦thers avoid paying VAT in the UK 鈥� that鈥檚 not uber cool鈥欌��
鈥淲e pay taxes locally and contribute to local economies. When you look at our main competitors, they鈥檙e usually registered somewhere like The Netherlands, meaning they pay no VAT on their commission or service charge, so there鈥檚 no money going to the exchequer. In our case, we鈥檙e registered in every market in which we operate, which means that the local economy gets a share of our profits.鈥澨�
Kapten has become a major player in the ride-hailing market, their company having grown to 400 employees and over 4 million clients.
