Taxi App Gett raise £120million from investors as it prepares for IPO launch

Taxi hailing app Gett are gearing up for an initial public offering after it raised $120 million from private investors it announced this week.

The news comes the same week as transportation rival Uber is due to enter the public stock market.

According to a report in the Haaretz, Gett said it raised the money in a mix of equity and debt capital in a funding round that valued the company at $1.5 billion.

The current round of funding was participated by investors who are already existing shareholders, including the German carmaker VW, Access and its founder Len Blavatnik, Kreos and MCI. The report confirms that the company’s IPO will either take place in London or Tel Aviv, where the firm is based.

Gett CEO Dave Waiser said he would be looking to see how American rival ride-hailing firm Lyft performs after it went public in March at a $22.2 billion valuation. He said “We will see how Lyft goes, we believe there’s a lot of public capital waiting for the [technology] darlings [Uber and Lyft], but we also believe that our business model makes sense,”.

Gett’s is known for not only offering private or executive vehicles on its platform, but also uses iconic taxi services such as London’s Black taxis and New York city's yellow taxis.

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