French Uber Competitor SnapCar Grabs $2.5 Million And Pivots To B2B

French Uber competitor SnapCar just raised $2.5 million (€2 million) from business angels, such as former global CEO of American Express Travel Charles Petruccelli and Bertrand Mabille. While the company already has more than 200 corporate clients, it is focusing on B2B for good.

SnapCar works more or less the same way as competitiors, such as Chauffeur-Privé, LeCab and Uber, but doesn’t seem to have the same trajectory as these other companies. Both Chauffeur-Privé and LeCab keep telling me that they are bigger than the other, and they certainly seem to have a lot of drivers on board (some of them actually use both services). And Uber is quite successful in Paris as well, thanks to its aggressive bonus policy. While everyone now has a central billing option for corporate clients, SnapCar is going all in on this route.

SnapCar is not only competing with these startups, but is also fighting against traditional taxi companies. It is now targeting the corporate clients that currently subscribe to expensive taxi plans. SnapCar provides a cheaper, more comfortable and more efficient experience.

And this is key to SnapCar’s success. If the company manages to sign a few big companies with thousands of companies who travel all around Paris (like auditing or consulting companies for instance), it could generate significant revenue. Now, it’s all about beating LeCab and Chauffeur-Privé to this market.

This new funding round will probably help improve service quality by letting SnapCar recruit new drivers, and lure corporate clients away from taxi companies. It’s all about generating more rides as the company takes a cut on every ride.

Back in January, when Drive raised $2.7 million for yet another French urban transportation startup, I wrote that there would be only two or three winners in this race – the other startups wouldn’t be able to keep up — I think that this still holds.