Hailo pulls out of North America, Bounce announces new partnership and ustwo launches music app

The business world is always changing and evolving so it’s no surprise that this week sees a flurry of announcements from Growing Business Young Guns and Young Gun-founded companies.

Global taxi app business Hailo, co-founded by 2012 Young Gun Jay Bregman, has unveiled that it is to pull its service out of North America with chief executive Bregman set to depart from the company, leaving former Starbucks executive Tom Barr in charge. Said to be the result of an ongoing price war and battle for market share between competitor taxi businesses Uber and Lyft, Hailo will cease operations in Montreal, Washington, Chicago, Boston and Toronto with a speculated 20 staff in the US and Canada expected to lose their jobs. Bregnan is said to have left of his own accord and will now focus on new business pursuits.

Hailo’s early-stage British rival Bounce, founded by 2010 Young Gun Nicko Williamson, has also revealed a new business move with the announcement that it has integrated its minicab app with mapping system what3words. Using location-naming technology, what3words is a universal address system which has assigned every 3×3 metre square on earth to a unique three word descriptor such as water.cabbage.teaspoon. The partnership between the two companies is set to enable Londoners to communicate an accurate location description such as “second left at the roundabout and third lamp post down” with just three simple words.

Young Gun alumni Matt Miller and John Sinclair’s digital studio ustwo has also made an exciting announcement this week, with the launch of its new mobile app service DICE co-founded with music mogul Phil Hutcheon. The app, which will launch initially in London, offers music fans face-value tickets to top shows with no booking fees and claims to save users up to 30% off the usual ticket prices. Having already attracted the likes of Jack White, Basement Jaxx, and Minstry of Sound, the app intends to help improve the ticketing and music industry by “empowering fans and artists”. Watch this space…