MyTeksi rules out possibility of being injected into Tan Chong Motor

PETALING JAYA: Taxi booking service provider MyTeksi Sdn Bhd, which is close to securing investors in its next round of funding to expand further regionally, has ruled out any possibility of being injected into automotive group Tan Chong Motor Holdings Bhd.
MyTeksi is founded by ex-Tan Chong head of marketing Anthony Tan, the grandson of Tan Chong co-founder Tan Sri Tan Yuet Foh, together with his Harvard Business School classmate Tan Hooi Ling after their plan to revamp the Malaysian taxi industry won second place in Harvard's Business Plan Contest in 2011.
By introducing an affordable, mobile-based technology to both the supply (taxi drivers) and demand (passengers) sides of the two-sided platform, MyTeksi has improved the safety, speed and certainty of the taxi ecosystem.
The MyTeksi app was publicly launched on June 5, 2012, as the first such app in Malaysia and Southeast Asia to adopt a smartphone-to-smartphone technology for booking and dispatching cabs.
"At the moment we have not partnered with Tan Chong, but if we feel the partnership would be beneficial we will work together. Tan Chong group is a great organisation, but MyTeksi is not a part of Tan Chong nor will it become part of the group at any point," Anthony told SunBiz recently.
Thus far MyTeksi's involvement with Tan Chong has been limited to an Earth Day campaign in April 2013, where MyTeksi worked with Tan Chong subsidiary Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd to promote the Nissan Leaf. Passengers who booked a taxi through the app stood a chance to be picked up in the electric vehicle.
Today, MyTeksi, or regionally known as GrabTaxi, is the largest taxi booking app and one of the fastest growing for-profit social startup companies in Southeast Asia. Besides Malaysia, GrabTaxi is now present in Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia in 16 cities and will continue its expansion into major cities in Southeast Asia.
MyTeksi general manager Adelene Foo (pix) said in an interview recently MyTeksi has also been dabbling with ideas and campaigns that go beyond the typical taxi services, such as delivering goods to people via taxis, as well as food delivery.
"Our core business is still taxi (services). For us, we are dabbling with different potential (ideas) because when you have a platform like this, there is so many things that you can do. It's like a logistics platform," she said.
MyTeksi has received two rounds of funding so far from global and regional investors of more than US$25 million.
Foo said the next round of funding is to help the business grow across the region, both in presence such as expanding to new markets and territories, as well as in staff strength.
"Our eye is on expansion and getting to the 650 million Southeast Asians. The next funding round is targeted at expansion because Southeast Asia is a big market. There is a lot more that we have to do. Funding will help with that and innovation.
"Being a tech company, we have to constantly innovate because needs and wants will change. We also want to focus on product innovation to remain relevant for the near and long term," said Foo.
She said MyTeksi hopes to cover a few more cities in Malaysia and Southeast Asia this year, especially cities that have a pertinent problem in the taxi industry, in line with its goal to be the number one option for people in the region.
One booking is made every two seconds and to date, MyTeksi/GrabTaxi has been downloaded onto over 1.7 million mobile devices regionally.
It employs both individual drivers as well as taxi fleets, with over 20,000 taxi drivers registered with the network.