Blacklane launches its service in 100 cities in 100 days

• The successful chauffeur-service portal is celebrating its “Mission 100” success

• In 100 days, Blacklane introduced its chauffeur service to 100 cities and is now represented in 130 cities in 45 countries

**Berlin – **With the launch of its services in Palma de Mallorca, the chauffeur-service portal added the 100th city in as many days to its partner network. The company aims to expand its services further in 2014, which is made possible in no small part by the partnership with Daimler Mobility Services.

At the end of last year the chauffeur-service portal had good reason to celebrate. As well as the announcement that Daimler Mobility Services GmbH had joined previous shareholders in the investment round, on the 16th of December the company could also disclose that it had been successful in its worldwide expansion. “Since the beginning of August, when the Blacklane partner network was made up of only 30 cities, we have launched a new city every day. At this pace, we were able to go online in 100 new business districts within 100 days. Now, we can offer our services to travelers all around the globe, from Hong Kong over Paris to New York”, reports Frank Steuer, cofounder and managing director of Blacklane. Internally known as “Mission 100” and started in late summer, the mission reached a successful conclusion with the 100th city of Palma de Mallorca.

“We were continually improving our internal processes, IT systems, and communication channels”, explains Dr. Jens Wohltorf, cofounder and managing director of Blacklane. “Starting in April, we geared all of our resources towards the realization of the vision of Mission 100”. For example, we identified weaknesses in the acquisition, the review, and the training of new partners in our network. Everything that cost us time unnecessarily was submitted for testing and questioned consistently before the start of the mission. This was the only way we were able to cope with the workload and fulfill the new tasks.”

Blacklane can look back on two successful years: Since its launch in Berlin in June 2012, the company initially expanded into Germany, and soon afterwards to the neighboring countries of Austria, Switzerland and France. In 2013 it was clear that the concept works and that with internationalization, you can permanently leave the competition behind. In the last two years the company has not only managed to become the European market leader in the chauffeur-service segment, but also, within a short time, a global player. "And we have even more plans for 2014," says Dr. Jens Wohltorf. "We will continue to develop the booking process and optimize the standard of our service. Blacklane should stand for convenient, professional limousine services around the globe."

"The growth at Blacklane is impressive. I look forward to the partnership - Daimler Mobility Services and Blacklane will advance in urban-space mobility together," says Marcus Spickermann, CFO of Daimler Mobility Services GmbH.

The internationalization is not yet finished. The development of the Asian market is planned for the coming weeks. Steuer is optimistic: "We are confident that we can overcome the unique challenges in markets such as China quickly and can soon effectively connect megacities such as Beijing and Shanghai to our partner network."

About Blacklane Blacklane GmbH, located in Berlin, Germany, offers its customers an innovative booking platform for high-end chauffeur services, via website or smartphone app and around the clock at transparent and reasonable fixed rates. As a chauffeur service portal, Blacklane does not provide its own vehicles but rather aggregates the spare capacities of local partners, thus ensuring better utilization and higher revenues. Blacklane cooperates only with carefully selected and trained chauffeurs with premium vehicles. Blacklane services include both classical transfers from A to B, for example form the airport to the hotel, but also hourly bookings for customers with several consecutive meetings or stopovers. The company currently employs more than 70 employees. Additional information can be found at www.blacklane.com.