Congratulations to SJL Client Shree Kalluri on Another Successful Venture!

Green Cab now using Madison startup's ride-hailing app to book rides on-demand

Shelley K. Mesch | Wisconsin State Journal
Oct 8, 2020

Madison-based Green Cab is now using a locally developed ride-hailing app to bring the company up to speed on the digital demands of riders.

The app, Mobile22, works similarly to the Uber and Lyft apps, with fare prices offered upfront, on-demand or scheduled rides and shared rides, but all the rides provided in the Madison-area would be from Green Cab rather than independent contractors with their own vehicles.

The app is only available now on the Apple App Store, but users without an iPhone can schedule ride online from their web browser at mobile22.com.

Mobile22 is founder Shree Kalluri's latest venture into changing how people look at transportation. With 35 employees, Kalluri said the platform is ready to launch with companies in other regions as well, and a Milwaukee taxi company is already planning on running a pilot of the service.

“We believe the future of mobility is a shared ecosystem,” Kalluri said. “Shared mobility gives consumers greater flexibility at a lower cost, while reducing their carbon footprint. And we believe taxi providers are going to play a major role in this.”

Mobile22 takes the best aspects of on-demand ride hailing and of traditional taxi companies, Kalluri said in an interview. The app's technology pairs riders and drivers in the most efficient way available — in order to reduce carbon emissions or energy consumption — while maintaining the taxi company's oversight of their vehicles and drivers.

"Our dispatch team often spent a lot of time during peak hours trying to get our cabs to our customers,” Green Cab president Ram Venkatesh said in a statement. “And it became a challenge to give immediate fare estimates to customers. These issues added up, and it meant that we couldn’t offer the high level customer experience we wanted to provide.”

Kalluri is known in the business community for founding the clinical trial management systems company PrecipEnz Technologies, later renamed Forte Research Systems, which was sold to the global firm Advarra. 

After leaving that venture, he started Zerology, which supports environmentally friendly transportation options. Zerology made it's first big splash about a year ago when it converted Madison-based Green Cab's entire fleet to Tesla Model 3 electric vehicles.

In the following months, Zerology acquired both Green Cab and Badger Cab. Along with Green Cab's Teslas, Zerology bought Chevrolet Bolt electric cars to use as a lower-cost option for riders.

“We believe the future of mobility is a shared ecosystem. Shared mobility gives consumers greater flexibility at a lower cost, while reducing their carbon footprint."

Shree Kalluri, Mobile22 founder