Race on for technology-age taxi dollars

FINANCIAL REVIEW | PUBLISHED: 20 OCT 2014 00:05:00

On Friday, some of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs and rich-list families backed an equity raising of taxi booking and payments app goCatch in the race to “break apart” the country’s powerful $5.4 billion taxi industry.

Some of the backers of the business include billionaire family the Kahlbetzers, the Millner family, fund manager David Paradice, Malcolm Turnbull’s son, Alex, and Square Peg, a technology venture capital firm backed by James Packer, Seek co-founder Paul Bassat and the billionaire Liberman family.

In a confidential presentation, goCatch’s goal was simple: to capture a “dominant share” of the taxi market. It was a shot across the bow to incumbents. The company told investors: “goCatch is breaking apart the Cabcharge network model and redefining how the industry works.”