Taxi ordering app will still need skilled professionals but Google cars would be 'the best recruitment tool ever'

Two-year old Hailo, which lets people order taxis from their smartphones, claims to have generated $55m in new business.

Chief executive Jay Bregman told the Guardian's Jemima Kiss at Dublin's Web Summit that the company now has a dedicated team working on complementary, mobile-first products.

"This is all based on the platform we have created," he said. "A lot of these people come from Zynga, so this is based on a highly experimental culture we have built for mobile. They do substantial AB testing on mobile to see if certain features work before you waste time building them.

"This doesn't necessarily mean taxis. What is Hailo? It's a brand that is on-demand and mobile native ... we can use that data and those wallets ... there are people screaming out for smartphone technology to enable them to get together for closer, more intimate experiences for their customers without intermediaries."

Bregman said Hailo was dependent on a network of skilled professional drivers who could apply "the knowledge" across the scope of the business, but that that would still apply even when self-driving cars become common in five to 10 years' time.

"That would be the best driver engagement and recruitment tool that we could possibly imagine. I would urge Google to do that as soon as possible."

• Hailo was named one of the 25 top London-focused tech startups recently announced by the UK government