🔒Shelton black-car booking platform Luxy Ride raises $2.5M to support growth

Many travelers have a story about a late Uber pickup, a confusing driver route or an uncomfortable ride. Shelton-based travel technology company Luxy Ride is betting there’s a market for a more predictable alternative. The company, which connects riders with professional chauffeurs and luxury vehicles through an app-based booking platform, has raised $2.5 million in new capital to boost marketing efforts and further develop its technology. Luxy Ride partners with about 1,000 livery companies and roughly 10,000 chauffeurs, allowing customers to book rides in major cities across the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami and Seattle. The service is similar to Uber and Lyft in that customers book rides through an app, but it differentiates itself by connecting users with professional chauffeurs in luxury vehicles, said Joe Salemme, founder and CEO.

“Everyone probably has an Uber story that they laugh about, or it’s pretty common for a horror story in the rideshare business,” he told the Hartford Business Journal. Salemme said Luxy Ride’s clients are typically business executives seeking prearranged transportation to airports and other destinations. “We don’t really compete with Uber when it comes to that bar-to-bar type of service,” said Salemme, who also co-owns Shelton real estate development firm J&L Enterprises with his wife Louise. “That’s not our wheelhouse.” Luxy Ride also allows clients to book multiple black-car trips through a single payment. “If you’re going to and from Hartford airport and you’re landing in LA, you could have four different operators executing those rides all on one easy platform, one easy payment,” he said. The company is also selective about which partners it accepts, approving only about 20% of the companies that apply to work with the platform. “We really focus on customer service and require our partners to provide the highest level of service,” he said.

‘Empty-leg’ trip

Founded in 2020, Luxy Ride employs 10 workers at its Shelton headquarters, including executives and a marketing team. The company also employs about 30 people handling technical and product operations at an offshore development center in India, though Salemme said it eventually plans to relocate those roles to the U.S. “That’s the long-term plan,” he said. “We’re working on it.” Salemme said the idea for Luxy Ride came from his efforts to optimize fleet routes while he owned regional waste-hauling and recycling company Connecticut Waste Transfer from 2003 to 2015. “It came from fleet efficiency: the same empty-mile problem exists in ground transportation,” he said. Salemme declined to disclose how many rides the company provides each year through its platform, but said Luxy Ride has about 1,000 corporate clients. The company earns revenue from the difference between the price Luxy Ride charges customers and the lower rate paid to livery operators that fulfill the rides. Salemme said the platform also helps operators fill trips that would otherwise involve vehicles returning empty to their garages. Through its Luxy Loop technology, the company matches those “empty-leg” trips with customers, often at lower prices. “Instead of a chauffeur dropping someone off and driving back empty or sitting idle, the platform works to match that next leg to real demand,” Salemme said. “That can create new revenue opportunities for partners and help us keep pricing more consistent and competitive for customers.” Those trips account for about a third of Luxy Ride’s revenue, he said. Salemme declined to disclose the company’s revenue, but said business has grown steadily since travel demand rebounded following the pandemic. “We’ve never seen anything so impactful ever, but we pushed through and got to the other side of it,” said Eric Redding, vice president of operations and revenue, referring to the pandemic. “The business growth that we’ve seen over the last couple of years is evident that travel is back.” The North American limousine services market generated about $3.8 billion in revenue in 2024 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.4% through 2031, according to Cognitive Market Research. Globally, the market totaled about $9.5 billion in 2024. Salemme said he is not overly concerned about competitors offering similar services, including Blacklane, Cary International and EmpireCLS. “We think there’s incredible opportunity,” he said. Technology platforms like Luxy Ride can help sole limousine operators find more customers at lower rates, said Michael Lindsey, president and CEO of Windsor-based Lindsey Limousine, which owns about 50 cars, but doesn’t use Luxy Ride’s platform. The downside is limo operators are not always well-vetted for level of service because some platforms put the primary focus on providing the lowest price, Lindsey said.

Capital raise

Luxy Ride recently raised $2.5 million in seed funding that will be used to expand marketing efforts — including online and television advertising — and grow its technology, marketing and customer service teams at its Shelton headquarters. Salemme said the company has not yet determined how many additional employees it will hire locally. “It will pretty much depend on our rate of growth,” he said. Salemme said many of the company’s investors are also Luxy Ride customers who were drawn to the platform’s combination of app-based booking and professional chauffeur service. He added that the company has raised less than $10 million since its founding, primarily from friends and family, and eventually hopes to expand its services internationally.