Campaign of the Week: CabSaver

The Investment Opportunity

The company is working off a valuation of £284,500.
The valuation has close to a 1:1 ratio with CabSaver’s projected EBITDA for 2015 (year 2). That’s a fairly attractive valuation.
The company is very early stage – financial information is only available from March 2014.
CabSaver has predicted quite the jump in sales from £19,350 in 2014 to £511,230 in 2015 (bearing in mind, however, that it only began selling in March 2014). That’s a multiplication of about 26.4.
The jump in marketing expenditure, on the other hand, is due to rise by a multiple of just c.3.16. Now we’re not saying that marketing spend and sales are directly proportionate – they’re absolutely not – but it’s fair to wonder if the 2015 projection might be a little over-ambitious.

The Tech-Take by Oli Batchelor

The world of public transportation has seen a lot of new technology affect it of late, most notably Uber. The app received enormous coverage as well as a couple of threats (only adding to its coverage) but is shaping up to turn any car into a potential ride. Then there are the dedicated ride-sharing platforms such as Liftshare, Carpooling and Bla Bla Car trying to fill every empty seat going anywhere. Lastly there has even been a peer-to-peer car lending platform set up called Whip-car that for a time looked very exciting but in 2013 choose to shut down due to difficulties with insurance legislation.

So, in this seemingly crowded space what would be the attraction to investing in Cabsaver? A platform dedicated only to booking return journeys from airports. On their Crowdcube investor forum they respond to this by saying that they are 50% cheaper than Uber. That is of course a serious advantage, but the big players could mimic their model as an extra feature on their platform and use their large market share and resources to squeeze Cabsaver out. However, if Cabsaver can create a strong user base through an experience that makes it different and to some of the market preferable then they could do very well. And they look like they might be in with a shot.

By targeting only the airport run they appeal to many car owners whom nearly only use taxis for airports to avoid the parking fees and so would only be interested in the platform that best served that need. Also, by using a simple sms system they again refine their target demographic. This cross-section of airport-users who are perhaps a little put off by the latest technical solution and prefer simplicity is actually quite sizeable and could be quite rewarding, if only Cabsaver can maintain a good distinction from their much larger competitors.