Photo courtesy of RideAustin
The service is called RideAustin and plans to rollout starting in June. It plans to expand its service to the entire city of Austin by the end of the year, according to information on its website.
Joe Liemandt, founder and CEO of Trilogy, is leading the RideAustin launch team. It is being supported by donations.
“We will have a phased rollout of the service – starting with downtown and the airport,” according to RideAustin. “We are committed to delivering a great experience to customers – and to do so – we will need to carefully expand our coverage as we grow our passenger and driver base.”
RideAustin has already started hiring drivers. It also pledges to pay for the drivers to get fingerprint-based background checks.
The new service is the latest development in Austin’s Transportation Network Company industry. Recently Austin voters shot down Prop 1, an ordinance that would have repealed the fingerprint background check requirement and other regulations of ride hailing companies. As a result, Uber and Lyft quit operating in the city. While some other ride hailing apps like Get Me continue to provide service, they have not been able to fill the void left by Uber and Lyft.
RideAustin will initially be available as an iOS app for both the rider and driver with plans to release an Android version by July, according to RideAustin.
Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory, also wrote a post in Austin Startups on Medium, signed by Austin tech leaders who back the RideAustin service.
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