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When he was a senior studying at Texas A&M University, Matthew Iommi realized that there were no good options for transporting groups of people. Fellow college students heading out for the night together didn\u2019t have access to on-demand rides with the same convenience, accessibility, and affordability of typical ride-hail platforms, like Uber and Lyft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you hit that six to seven [person] mark, you had to split up and take multiple cars, which is inefficient and not great for sustainability. Plus it\u2019s an inferior experience because everyone can\u2019t ride together,\u201d Iommi, now 25, told TechCrunch. \u201cThe other option was to reserve a charter vehicle days or weeks in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latter choice usually entails paying for more hours than the group needs the ride, with no easy way to split the payment between friends.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2020, he and his co-founder Justin Rath decided to buy a party bus and experiment with creating an on-demand group rideshare service that serves between seven to 14 passengers. They named it Fetii<\/a>, a French Oceanic term for an extension of one\u2019s family.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe like to say that the mantra of rideshare is bringing people together,\u201d Iommi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Five years later, Fetii now claims to be operating in 68 cities across six states \u2013 including Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Phoenix, and Scottsdale \u2013 and transporting over 200,000 passengers each month. And while Fetii does offer the ability to reserve rides in advance, Iommi says the majority \u2013 75% to 80% \u2013 are on-demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Austin-based startup has closed a $7.35 million seed round led by Mark Cuban, with participation from Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, and others. Fetii will use that money to expand into new markets, including Florida, California, and Massachusetts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Fetii isn\u2019t the first startup to build a business around group rides. Years ago, there was Chariot<\/a>, a commuter shuttle startup that Ford acquired in 2016, before shutting it down in 2019<\/a>. Iommi explains that Chariot\u2019s focus on employee and commuter rides is a difficult model because it only requires service for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2022, Uber launched Uber Charter<\/a> in partnership with US Coachways as a way to help riders book party buses and passenger vans through the app, but that quietly went bust, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n These failures were lessons for Iommi and Rath. As a couple of college kids bootstrapping a startup they, \u201chad to figure out a way to launch in a city without burning millions of dollars, like these rideshare companies typically do whenever they just raise these huge rounds and just try to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than target corporate events, weddings, or other use cases that charter companies typically focus on at the start, Fetii honed in on college students.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s the biggest thing that people before us haven\u2019t figured out, is creating a service and a brand that\u2019s more geared towards young adults and people who tend to congregate in groups more often,\u201d Iommi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most of Fetii\u2019s riders are between 21 and 30 years old, and the platform\u2019s use cases range from nights out and bachelorette parties to weddings and sports games. Fetii also provides rides for groups doing corporate events, conferences, and festivals.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re using us multiple times a week, whether it\u2019s just to go out with friends or they have a formal or an event or anything like that,\u201d Iommi said.<\/p>\n Thinking through the payments system was also a unique challenge for Fetii.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen that van shows up, the way [riders] pay is a lot like Lime and Bird by scanning a QR code, so each person in the group \u2013 rather than one person having to put the whole payment down and hope they get paid back \u2013 can individually pay their fare,\u201d Iommi said, noting that the typical fare is about $5 per person.\u00a0<\/p>\n By focusing on college students first, Fetii has developed a playbook to scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe like to start on universities first. We partner with a lot of the orgs, the sports teams, the fraternities, the sororities, and really teach them how the product is used,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The first ride is always free, which Iommi says helps Fetii build a foundation in the college community. This allows the startup to attract drivers and ensures that there\u2019s a supply-demand equilibrium.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fetii uses a program called \u201cFetii VSP\u201d (vehicle service provider), which allows entities with their own fleets and drivers to put their vans on Fetii\u2019s platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once the startup establishes a base in colleges, it expands outwards. People start seeing branded Fetii vans driving around and word of mouth spreads. As Iommi pointed out, each rider in a group can be converted into a customer, who can then go on to convert others, resulting in healthy, cost efficient growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, it was rave reviews from one user, Mark Cuban\u2019s daughter, that attracted the billionaire investor and former \u201cShark Tank\u201d star to Fetii\u2019s seed round.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy daughter used Fetii nonstop with her friends and raved about it,\u201d Cuban told TechCrunch. \u201cShe told me I should invest. So I reached out to Matthew and the more I heard about it, the more I liked it.\u201d<\/p>\nFor young people, by young people<\/strong><\/h2>\n