The transportation hailing app space is a hot one. In the United States the clear winner is Uber. They’ve expanded to many major cities across the country with plans for even more. Uber is being hit with a lot of challenges though because they are utilizing hired limousines and sedans rather than taxis themselves and they operate in a gray area when it comes to taxicab regulations. We actually use Uber quite a bit on the sneaker-strappend nationwide startup road trip.

In the UK, Skype backed HailO is the big taxicab hailing app. They recently received $17 million in funding to expand across the pond to the United States where they will go head to head with Uber.

A new Copenhagen startup is looking to shake up the whole space by launching globally all at one time. ClickATaxi is trying to build a network of worldwide cab drivers to make one all-inclusive app. ClickATaxi CEO and founder, Soren Halskov Nissen, thinks it’s ridiculous for travelers to have to have multiple taxi cab apps and then have to remember which countries or which cities each app works in.  By taking on the entire world from the beginning they hope to quickly build scale with travelers.

We got a chance to talk with Nissen in the interview below.

What is Click A Taxi?

Click A Taxi is global taxi aggregation service providing you with a handpicked quality taxi in just a few clicks, anywhere in the world.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Søren Halskov Nissen, CEO and founder. Søren comes from an operations and performance management background and spent several years at American logistics company, Brightpoint. Nikolaj Køster, Co- founder and Head of Communications. Nikolaj has a wide range of experience from communication and sales. Michael Vivet, Co-founder and Head of IT and Development. Michael comes to Click A Taxi with extensive experience as a systems architect. Peter Theill, Co-founder and Client Developer. Peter brings his experience with building dynamic and engaging front -end systems.

Where are you based?

Copenhagen, Denmark, but our office is not exactly Danish. We now have a team of twenty, consisting of nine different nationalities. So you can imagine that lunchtime gets pretty interesting.

What’s the startup scene/culture like in Copenhagen?

The Copenhagen start-up scene is getting very vibrant and international. The city might be small (metropolitan population is 2 million) but the startup scene is booming and there are lots of excellent opportunities for people with a good idea and the drive to get things done as well as good access to international talent. The fact that Copenhagen is small means that everyone is connected and helps each other out.

How did you come up with the idea for Click A Taxi?

Through his work with Brightpoint, Søren spent a lot if time travelling and living all over the world. Like many people, he found himself frustrated by the process involved with getting a taxi in an unfamiliar location. The process of finding a reputable taxi company, negotiating a phone call in a foreign language and then worrying about how much the journey is likely to cost is one that most travellers could do without. Søren reckoned that if there was a company to go through that process for you and all you had to do was click a few buttons, then travelling would be a much more seamless experience. So that’s what we give to our users; the possibility to get a safe taxi as easy as it should be.

What problem does Click A Taxi solve?

There are a lot of taxi apps out there. But Click A Taxi is the only company investing in building an aggregated taxi network on a truly global scale. When you travel, you don’t want to have to have one taxi app for every city you visit, or each cab company you use. You want to have one app that will make it easy to get a safe cab from a quality taxi company anywhere you are. With our global rollout well underway, Click A Taxi is on the way to achieving that level of coverage. Whether you are in Philadelphia, Glasgow or Melbourne, you can use Click A Taxi to travel.

What’s your secret sauce?

Going global immediately. Our taxi network is not just about one city, one country or even just a consumer app. Over the next few months we’ll be appearing in some surprising places. So watch this space…

What’s one dilemma you’ve encountered in the startup process?

Being constantly tempted by the many feature possibilities and nice to haves there is both in the app and the service. Eye on the ball, constant focus on one thing and one thing only: Building the first and best taxi aggregator for the world.

What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?

The ability to build a very talented team of A players in Copenhagen. We were worried about the pool of talent being big enough in our hometown and if we should establish local offices. This has been put to shame and we are thrilled to have such a hardworking team rocking the boat every day.

What’s the first thing you would do for Click A Taxi with a one million dollar investment?

Celebration bash with the current team! They alone are the reason why we’re now the worlds largest taxi aggregator by coverage after just 9 months of operation.

What’s next for Click A Taxi?

At the moment we’re one hundred percent focused on our global rollout. Click A Taxi is launching in a new country approximately every 30 days. In the next two months we have Germany and Spain in our sites. Rest of Europe, USA and parts of South America, Asia, South Africa and Australia will follow towards the end of 2012. Naturally, we’re buzzing about the prospect of getting on the ground in the states. We’ll see you all very soon.

Linkage:

Check out ClickATaxi here

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