Goldman backs Japan taxi-hailing player Go

The company – reportedly now valued at approximately USD 1bn – also secured debt financing lines of JPY 3bn and JPY 1bn from MUFG Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, respectively. The funding will be used to expand system infrastructure, improve service functionality, and develop next-generation mobility businesses, according to a statement.

Known as Mobility Technologies until earlier this year, Go was established in 2020 through the merger of taxi-hailing services run by Nihon Kotsu, one of Japan's largest taxi companies, and DeNA, a local mobile gaming and e-commerce services provider. Following the merger, Nihon Kotsu and DeNA each owned 38.17% of the business.

Nihon Kotsu's operation, which started offering phone-based taxi dispatch services in 2010 and graduated to a mobile offering, raised several rounds of funding under the name JapanTaxi. According to AVCJ Research's records, Sparx Group invested JPY 500m in 2017 and JPY 1.05bn in 2018.

Toyota Motor Corporation invested JPY 7.5bn in 2018 and worked with JapanTaxi and KDDI Corporation on an artificial intelligence (AI) support system that predicted taxi demand based on taxi service logs, location-based demographic modelling, and factors such as weather and public transport availability.

In addition to the main taxi-hailing app, which has achieved 14m downloads, Go offers a B2B platform that handles taxi fee payment and tracks employee taxi usage and an AI-enabled service capable of detecting scenarios that might lead to traffic accidents. There is also a service that promotes electric vehicle adoption by providing low-cost charging points and in-car emissions tracking.

Go recently announced plans to terminate its food delivery platform, citing a post-pandemic upturn in demand for taxis and visits to restaurants.

"Mobility is an integral part of our everyday life, and Go Inc. is well positioned to lead digitalisation and innovation of Japan's taxi market. With its excellent IT expertise, deep industry knowledge, and strong management team, Go Inc. can solve pressing market-wide issues while establishing itself as a transformative mobility platform," said Stephanie Hui, global co-head of growth equity at GSAM.

Go competes with the likes of Uber, Didi Mobility Japan – a joint venture between China's Didi and SoftBank Corporation – and S.Ride. Other players in the space include Denno Kotsu, which provides a cloud-based dispatch system to taxi operators. It has raised several rounds of funding, most recently JPY 1.2bn from Japan Post Investment among others. JapanTaxi was an early investor in the business.

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• Topics
• North Asia
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• Japan
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