Taxi-Hailing App Flywheel Adds A Group Of New Investors

Cab-hailing startup Flywheel has been gradually expanding its availability in new markets, and also offering new ways for customers to pay. To do so, the company has extended its Series C financing to make room for a group of investors with experience building huge businesses and ties to its new CEO.

The Flywheel app enables users to hail — and now pay for — cabs from their mobile phones in various cities across the country. It partners with local taxi fleets in six markets along the West Coast, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Sacramento and San Diego.

Last fall, Flywheel announced a $14 million Series C financing round and a new CEO, former Stratify, Snapstick, and Droptalk founder Rakesh Mathur. That brought the total amount Flywheel had raised since being founded to $35 million.

Flywheel is not disclosing the amount of this investment, but the deal adds new investors who have worked with Mathur before. That includes former Flextronics CEO Michael Marks, former Aricent CEO Ash Bhardwaj, former OpenTable CFO Duncan Robertson, as well as Smart Modular founder Ajay Shah. They join previous investors TCW/Craton, Rockport Capital and Shasta Ventures.

Together, the new investors bring a world of experience in leading companies in competitive markets, and also a few big exits behind them. Marks grew Flextronics from a business with revenues of $93 million to one that brought in $36 billion annually. Bhardwaj’s Aricent was acquired by KKR for $1 billion, while Shah’s Smart Modular was acquired by Solectron for $2 billion.