Free Now (service)

FREENOW is a mobility service provider headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. FREENOW was formed in February 2019 from a joint venture between BMW and Daimler Mobility. Thomas Zimmermann is CEO of the FREENOW Group.^[3]

FREENOW

Trade name	Intelligent Apps GmbH
Company type	Private
Industry	Mobility-as-a-Service Business Travel Management
Predecessors	mytaxi, Hailo, Clever Taxi,BEAT,Kapten,
Headquarters	Hamburg , Germany
Area served	Germany, UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Poland, France, Austria and Greece
Key people	Thomas Zimmermann (CEO)[1] Lennart Zipfel (CFO)[2]
Products	Vehicle for hire, taxi, business taxi,
Services	Mobility as a service [[Business Travel Management]
Owner	BMW Group and Mercedes-Benz Group
Number of employees	700 (2025)
Divisions	FREENOW for Business
Website	www.free-now.com/uk/

The FREENOW Group is the vehicle for hire vertical of this joint venture; other services within the vertical include Beat and formerly Clever, Hive and Kapten, which rebranded to FREENOW.^[3] FREENOW is one of the largest vehicle for hire companies in Europe.^[4] As Mobility-as-a-Service platform FREENOW aggregates numerous mobility brands and vehicle options to make them bookable within one app. Next to taxi and PHV, FREENOW offer car sharing and further micro-mobility options such as eScooters, eMopeds, and eBikes with its partners TIER, VOI, EMMY, Cooltra, Miles, SHARE NOW, DOTT, felyx and SIXT.

FREENOW serves over 150 European cities including Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Paris, Milan, Rome and London. FREENOW customer care and support teams operate from Dublin, Hamburg, Madrid, and Warsaw among other European cities.

History

mytaxi logo

mytaxi was founded in 2009 by German entrepreneurs Niclaus Mewes and Sven Külper. Later that year, the pair founded the legal entity behind mytaxi, Intelligent Apps. In September 2014, Daimler acquired mytaxi's parent company, Intelligent Apps, entering the vehicle for hire market.^[5]

MyTaxi in Berlin

In 2016, the German e-hailing app mytaxi merged with Hailo. Founded in London in 2011, Hailo was a British technology platform that matched taxi drivers and passengers through its mobile phone application. The merger between mytaxi and Hailo made mytaxi the largest licensed taxi e-hailing operator.^[6]

Following regulatory approval in February 2019, Daimler and BMW announced the €1bn mobility joint-venture; the parent company is known as YOUR NOW which also operates SHARE NOW, ReachNow, Park Now and CHARGE NOW.^[7] On 1 July 2019, myTaxi was rebranded to FREENOW and has transformed from a taxi app into a fully integrated multi-mobility platform.

In January 2021, FREENOW announced a €6 million investment to fund its 14,000 drivers in Ireland with home charging kits to encourage them to switch to electric vehicles.^[8] Overall, FREENOW wants to allocate more than EUR 100 million of resources in the coming five years to push the electrification of its rides across Europe.^[9]

On 16 April, 2025, it was announced that the company was bought by Lyft for €175mn. The purchase marks its first expansion into Europe.^[10]