Daimler subsidiary moovel acquires Hamburg-based provider of location messenger app Familonet

moovel Group, a subsidiary of Daimler AG, has announced the 100% acquisition of Familonet GmbH, based in Hamburg, Germany. The team from Familonet will be bolstering the moovel development team at their Hamburg site and the Familonet app, which has 2 million registered users, will remain available. 

moovel has developed an operating system for urban mobility that offers access to various services, including booking and payment. In Germany, the mobility app ‘moovel’ combines local public transport, car-sharing provider car2go, mytaxi, rental bicycles and Deutsche Bahn. Most services can be booked and paid for simply and directly via the moovel app.  

With the takeover of the mobile company Familonet – the provider of the Familonet app, which simplifies everyday communication for families and groups of friends, housemates and colleagues worldwide using intelligent geolocation functions, the company gains competencies in the areas of geo-fencing and live locating, which can be used to develop solutions for the urban mobility of the future. At the same time, the acquisition of the 13-strong staff is bolstering the moovel development team at its Hamburg site.  

Dr. Oliver Wahlen, Chief Technology Officer of moovel Group said: ′The expertise and skills of Familonet are an ideal addition to the moovel development team at the Hamburg site. Both the geo-fencing technology and the team of developers with location expertise are a major win for moovel.’ With the acquisition of Familonet, the number of moovel Group employees at the Hamburg site will rise to nearly 40. In total, more than 250 people work for moovel in Germany and the US. 

The moovel app and moovel transit product portfolio are being used by more than 2.9 million users in Germany and the US. In the first half of 2017, more than 10 million transactions were conducted in total worldwide using moovel apps. With the moovel transit product portfolio, the group offers white label solutions for transport associations and companies around the world and is the market leader in the USA. The white label application has been used in Germany by the Karlsruhe transport association KVV since May 2017. 

The moovel mobility platform will also form part of the proposed alliance of the car-sharing services of Daimler and BMW, Car2Go and DriveNow, and MyTaxi.