Citymapper boosted by Apple fever

Yusuf, a US-educated Pakistani, moved to London five years ago. Like many new to the capital he found the public transport system confusing. Armed with an engineering degree, an MBA, technology venture capital experience and start-up dreams he set about trying to fix the problem.

“It was basically a personal problem I had figuring out how to get around the city. The buses were complicated. The original app I started with was Busmapper, when they first made the real-time bus data available.”

The project evolved into Citymapper by adding tube and train data. The app has thrived in spite of myriad rivals, including Google, which offers transport data via Google Maps, by dint of its nimbleness and focus on urban transport, according to Yusuf. Citymapper devotees rave about its accuracy. “Our routing is good because we focused on the urban experience,” Yusuf says. “London was great for building a transport app and for mobile because it’s a megacity and it’s complicated.

“Google Maps is a maps app that they put routes on top of. We think about real-time and urban user experience. We’re not about cars and traffic, or planes.”

The app is free and so has no significant revenues. Citymapper’s international ambitions are now well-funded, however, following a $10m venture capital investment in March led by Balderton Capital that included contributions from Index Ventures and the Silicon Valley-based firm Greylock Partners. “We thought we’d have to go to San Francisco for funding,” says Yusuf. “But we got it in London.”

The cash is funding recruitment to drive international expansion, develop the app and build more partnerships, such as its tie-up with the taxi-hailing app Hailo in london, that could become significant revenue streams.

It is not yet clear how Citymapper might become self-financing but given Balderton’s claim that Citymapper is a rare “home screen” app – one that smartphone users keep handy at all times – it may never need to. In an increasingly crowded app market internet giants that traffic in attention – most notably Facebook, which paid $19bn for WhatsApp – have proved themselves willing to pay incredible sums to acquire such prime digital real estate.

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