Have BMW and Mercedes found a buyer for FreeNow?

According to the German Manager Magazine, the two carmakers have found a potential buyer for the app FreeNow. Based on information from “well-informed insiders,” the American taxi service Lyft could be interested.

The magazine’s informant also says that the deal is close to being finalised and Lyft is prepared to pay a “mid-double-digit million amount.” That is significantly less than the initially reported price tag of 500 million euros. However, neither BMW and Mercedes nor Lyft wanted to speak to Manager Magazine to clarify the information.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the two carmakers commissioned the investment bank Lazard to gauge interest from potential buyers. Companies like Uber and the South Korean taxi app ‘Kakao Mobility’ were tipped as potential buyers. Lyft, which has so far been active primarily in the US, has already hired experts who are familiar with the European mobility market, the Manager Magazine reports.

BMW and Mercedes each hold just under 50 per cent of FreeNow. It is currently available in more than 150 cities in Europe. The core of the service was once called ‘MyTaxi’, but FreeNow now also offers e-scooters, car sharing and, in some cases, rental cars in addition to taxi services. In Hamburg, for example, FreeNow is also a partner of the city’s ‘ZukunftsTaxi’ initiative to convert the city’s taxi fleet to electric vehicles. A takeover could thus offer competitors the opportunity to penetrate many major European cities or expand their own services there.

The two German carmakers – or in the case of Mercedes-Benz, the former Daimler AG – founded a joint venture for mobility services in 2019, which included FreeNow. Of these other mobility services originally started by BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the car-sharing business called Share Now was taken over by the Stellantis mobility subsidiary Free2Move in 2022.

manager-magazin.de (in German)