With a €20 million Series A Snapp opens up ride-sharing in Iran

Investors have turned iran into the state-of-the-art u . S . To include the ride sharing and vehicle-hailing app phenomenon.

The iran net institution has secured a €20 million series a spherical of financing for its journey sharing application snapp. The south african mobile telephone business enterprise mtn led the round. It's far the handiest investor.

Mtn is a main shareholder of irancell and iran net holdings. It has a partnership with the german primarily based e-commerce incubator rocket net in iran. Collectively rocket internet and mtn helped release snapp, previously referred to as taxi yaab in 2014. (rocket internet and mtn also helped launch mozando, the iranian ebay and bamilo, iran’s amazon.) Mtn became no longer to be had for comment.

€20 million is some of the 2nd largest investments in iran’s nascent startup surroundings this yr. In march swedish based investment firm pomegranateinvested €60 million in sarava, an iranian funding company targeted on e-trade. Sarava has backed digikala, one of iran’s most successful e-trade startups.

Snapp currently operates simplest in tehran, iran’s capital town. Shahkar told me to that the company employs 10,000 drivers in a metropolis of eight.1 million residents. The agency has recorded half one million customers, largely thru phrase-of-mouth. The corporation did no longer divulge its revenue or its valuation.

There are 27 million registered automobiles in iran. The quantity registered as professional taxis numbers around eighty,000. But, the taxi scene in the country is complex. There are non-public taxis and “shared taxis” that are fee controlled called savaris. Snapp leader executive shahram shahkar told me that there are an additional eighty,000 private drivers and 2 hundred,000 freelance, unofficial taxis in tehran.

Snapp works the same way uber does. You download an utility in your cellphone, request a motive force, and move. Where snapp differs from uber is fee. Due to the fact iran is still largely a cash-based totally society, drivers receive hard coins.

“some other factor that makes snapp particular is that the rate of the ride is about ahead,” shahkar said. “this pre-pricing is our fee proposition; it removes haggling.”

Shahkar mentioned that uber may additionally have copied snapp’s pre-pricing model. “they didn’t have this feature before us.”

Snapp commissions drivers with valid motive force’s licenses and coverage. Every motive force undergoes a historical past take a look at and the snapp team inspects each car earlier than giving them the pass beforehand.

Maximum of iran’s population of eighty million is underneath 30, with a high price of literacy (ninety eight percentage). Almost 65 percent of iranian homes have broadband get right of entry to and mobile penetration is 136 percentage, with an predicted eighty three.2 million mobile subscriptions, the most important inside the middle east.

Whilst requested about destiny plans, mainly how a ways snapp plans to scale shahkar told me that they plan to focus on the iranian market and “supply cost.”

“we plan to put money into our current operations, increase to other towns, introduce exclusive services which include premium motors and offer new features,” shahkar stated.

Much like the u.s., there are other trip-sharing app competition inside the united states just like the tehran taxi agency. Tehran taxi introduced that it's far exploring a web cellular application just like uber in 2017.

“we've the fine personnel, selected from the best universities in iran,” shahkar said. Snapp employs one hundred thirty human beings. These personnel, shahkar says, are snapp’s competitive benefit. “they have got local information, which is vital for a complicated town like tehran.” Tehran has severa visitors restrictions and policies. That gives him confidence that snapp will retain to dominate the

“they have got local knowledge, that's vital for a complicated metropolis like tehran.” Tehran has numerous traffic regulations and guidelines. That offers him self belief that snapp will preserve to dominate the journey-sharing marketplace. “you can’t just examine this marketplace in an afternoon,” he said.