French ride-hailing startup Heetch looks to London

French ride-hailing service Heetch has announced it has raised $20m new investment and now aims to bring its app to London and other European cities. The service was first launched back in 2013 as a private hire hailing platform, however due to changes in French regulation it modified it’s business model and relaunched as a taxi provider in April 2017. Heetch is the the most popular app after Uber in France, but it’s yet to be seen whether $20 million is enough to make a dent in already established markets. Teddy Pellerin, co-founder of Heetch, has hinted that he wants the company to be more sociable than competitors and hopes shared rides aimed at the younger spectrum of society could be the selling point in new markets like London.

So far both customers and drivers have been sceptical as to whether shared journeys with strangers can ever take off in the UK.