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The Dubai skyline.

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Wheely, a luxury-focused competitor to ride-hailing giant Uber, is launching in Dubai as the company looks to reembark on an international expansion effort that was quashed by Covid in 2020.

The company, founded by Russian-Swiss entrepreneur Anton Chirkunov, told CNBC it will offer rides in the United Arab Emirates city starting Wednesday, catering mainly to wealthy clients.

As part of its Dubai debut, Wheely will start offering users rides in BMW 5 Series cars for the first time, a precursor to adding support for BMW’s i5 electric variant in the future.

That’s a notable step, as the i5 is a cheaper vehicle than luxury electric SUV competitors such as the Mercedes-Benz EQE and the Tesla Model X.

Mercedes’ 2024 EQE EV starts at $79,650 while the 2024 BMW i5 series starts at $66,800.

Wheely didn’t at any point suggest it plans to ditch Mercedes cars anytime soon, but the move provides some insight into how the company is thinking about the electrification of its fleets.

Dubai opportunity

Chirkunov said Wheely is targeting the Dubai market, which it’s been planning on entering since 2021, as it already serves as a hub for wealthy business people emigrating from Europe, as well as young digital nomads.

“European families and entrepreneurs have been moving to Dubai in the last five years,” Chirkunov told CNBC in an interview ahead of the launch. “It is the most requested destination by our guests and our members. It sees the highest immigration of millionaires in the world.”

Wheely’s platform is tailored more toward mass market usage, however, and Chirkunov thinks his platform has an opportunity to stand out. It competes in a similar space to Blacklane, another luxury-focused ride-hailer.

Chirkunov compares his product to more of a luxury product than a general service for consumers. He compares the Wheely brand to the American Express Centurion and Platinum membership credit cards in terms of brand status.

Headquartered in London, Wheely is a startup that offers a car-hailing app similar to Uber, but targeted toward a high net worth clientele. Fares, for example, average around £46 ($57.72) for a 30-minute journey from Mayfair to the City of London.

Prices aren’t the only thing that’s “high-end” about Wheely. The company provides trained chauffeurs who greet customers, collect their bags, and take other measures to make riders feel special.

Users can make specific requests to their chauffeurs on the Wheely app — for example, having a driver collect flowers for a loved one before they get picked up.

Wheely even has its own tailor-made “chauffeur academy” program in place to train up drivers. That program already exists in London, at Syon House, the lavish home of the Duke of Northumberland.

Wheely is now replicating that model in Dubai, too.

Its members-only services — which users can only get access to via invitation or after 15 trips with the app within six months — offers access to more premium tiers, including a first-class service with Mercedes-Benz S-Class vehicles that come with bath towels, and an option to reserve a chauffeur for a whole day.

From Covid crash to global expansion

Wheely is making a renewed international drive in Dubai after several years of turbulence for the company.

Wheely had a tough time when Covid lockdowns came about.

“The pandemic was tough because, unlike, say, Amazon, where order volumes skyrocketed in the pandemic, for us our volumes dropped by 99%,” Chirkunov said.

Since then, however, demand has bounced back from its high-end clientele.

He says the platform recently reached operational profitability everywhere except new markets like Paris and Dubai.

Back in 2020, right before the pandemic, Chirkunov told CNBC in an interview that he was planning on raising $30 million in fresh capital to embark on expansion into the U.S.

Chirkunov, when asked whether Wheely had decided to raise more cash, disclosed that the company discreetly raised an additional sum of money internally from existing shareholders.

The funding, which has not previously been disclosed, amounts to $15 million, and brings Wheely’s total cash raised to date to $43 million.

Wheely’s existing shareholder base includes venture capital firm Concentric and AdFirst.vc, as well as Chirkunov himself.

Wheely plans to expand its Middle East team and chauffeur network to over 1,000 in the next three to five years, the company told CNBC exclusively.

Wheely reported revenues of £22.5 million in its 2021 financial year, according to Companies House filing.

The company, which remains lossmaking at a group level, reported losses of £6.1 million. That was as headcount grew significantly to 221 from 157.

U.S. expansion next

The Middle East isn’t the only stop on Wheely’s global expansion route, though. The startup, which earlier launched services in Paris, now plans to pursue operations in the United States, Wheely’s co-founder and CEO told CNBC.

Chirkunov said that the pandemic scuppered Wheely’s short-term plans to enter the U.S. market, and so Dubai “eclipsed” the U.S. in terms of focus for the firm.

Now, though, he sees an eventual U.S. launch in his sights.

“We have many North American travellers using Wheely, especially on transfers and flights,” Chirkunov said. Wheely’s app enables its chauffeur network to check on updates about the status of travelers’ flights in real time.

“We’re still looking at launching in the U.S. at some point,” Chirkunov added. “The reason we haven’t launched yet is because we’ve been squarely focused on Dubai.”

But eventually, Chirkunov says, “New York will over take London as our top market.”

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Amazon’s cloud business giving federal agencies up to $1 billion in discounts

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Amazon's cloud business giving federal agencies up to  billion in discounts

Attendees walk through an exposition hall at AWS re:Invent, a conference hosted by Amazon Web Services, in Las Vegas on Dec. 3, 2024.

Noah Berger | Getty Images

Amazon Web Services has agreed to provide U.S. federal agencies with up to $1 billion in discounts for cloud adoption, modernization and training through 2028, an agency overseeing government procurement announced Thursday.

The agreement is expected to speed up migration to the cloud, as well as adoption of artificial intelligence tools, the General Services Administration said.

“AWS’s partnership with GSA demonstrates a shared public-private commitment to enhancing America’s AI leadership,” the agency said in a release.

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Amazon‘s cloud boss Matt Garman hailed the agreement as a “significant milestone in the large-scale digital transformation of government services.”

The discounts aggregated across federal agencies include credits to use AWS’ cloud infrastructure, modernization programs and training services, as well as incentives for “direct partnership.”

The GSA announced a similar deal last month with cloud rival Oracle. The agency also reached an agreement with OpenAI on Wednesday that will give federal agencies access to ChatGPT for $1 through the next year.

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Duolingo stock skyrockets 30% on boosted guidance as AI powers user growth

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Duolingo stock skyrockets 30% on boosted guidance as AI powers user growth

A Duolingo logo is seen on a smartphone.

Pavlo Gonchar | LightRocket | Getty Images

Duolingo shares skyrocketed more than 30% after the language learning platform boosted its guidance due to strong user growth driven by artificial intelligence.

The mobile learning platform hiked its full-year guidance to between $1.01 billion and $1.02 billion, up from a prior range of $987 million to $996 million. Duolingo also lifted its bookings guidance to between $1.15 billion and $1.16 billion.

“We exceeded our own high expectations for bookings and revenue this quarter, and did it while expanding profitability,” said co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn in a release.

Daily active users jumped 40% to nearly 48 million from about 34 million in the year-ago period.

Read more CNBC tech news

In an effort to expand its course offerings and boost users, Duolingo has implemented AI tools, including a video-call conversation practice feature for some paying subscribers. The company has also expanded beyond language learning with new course such as chess.

Duolingo also announced the acquisition of London-based music gaming startup NextBeat for an undisclosed amount as it looks to broaden its app products.

The company’s CEO said Duolingo is still in the early stages of its growth trajectory.

Revenues jumped about 41% year over year to $252 million and beat a Wall Street estimate of $241 million. Net income grew 84% from a year ago to about $45 million, or 91 cents per share.

For the third quarter, Duolingo projects revenues between $257 million and $261 million, surpassing the $253 million forecast from Wall Street analysts.

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Democrats question Google’s Trump talks over censorship suit and possible ‘quid-pro-quo’ deal

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Democrats question Google's Trump talks over censorship suit and possible 'quid-pro-quo' deal

Ranking Member, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on President Trump’s nominees to lead the National Economic Council, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Housing Finance Agency, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 27, 2025.

Annabelle Gordon | Reuters

Senate Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are asking Google and its YouTube unit whether discussions with lawyers for President Donald Trump have included the possibility of settling a censorship suit in exchange for potentially favorable treatment from the administration.

In a letter sent Thursday to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, the senators asked the executives about conversations with President Trump’s lawyers over an ongoing lawsuit that was filed by Trump more than four years ago, accusing the online video platform of unlawful censorship.

The lawsuit stemmed from the suspension of Trump’s accounts on social media sites after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump filed suits against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube later that year.

The senators highlighted reports of a court filing from May indicating that lawyers representing YouTube and President Trump were “engaged in productive discussions.” In that filing, the two parties asked the judge to delay a June court hearing until Sept. 8. 

“We are concerned about the possibility that Google could settle the lawsuit against YouTube in a quid-pro-quo arrangement to avoid full accountability for violating federal competition, consumer protection, and labor laws, circumstances that could result in the company running afoul of federal bribery laws,” the letter states.

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Twitter (now X) and Facebook (now Meta) settled lawsuits with Trump this year, for about $10 million and $25 million, respectively. Trump’s 2021 suit claimed unconstitutional censorship after his accounts were suspended. A judge dismissed the Twitter case in 2022, but Trump appealed.

Under the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media platforms are allowed to moderate content on their platforms and exempt themselves from liability for the material that users post.

The senators noted in their letter that Google is a defendant in multiple unfair labor and antitrust lawsuits brought by the U.S. government. It also pointed to the company’s donation of $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural fund, and noted that Pichai attended the president’s inauguration and dined with him at Mar-a-Lago.

Google currently faces the potential of being broken into parts, after the company lost an antitrust case last year brought by the Department of Justice related to Google’s dominance in search.

The company argued that any kind of breakup could result in the U.S. ceding tech competition to China. The judge is expected to rule on the penalties this month. 

Google also has several open cases from the National Labor Relations Board, alleging unfair labor practices, the senators said.

“The company has substantial interests in almost every aspect of the federal government, from tax policy to energy and environmental policy, and much more,” they wrote. “Google stands to benefit from how the federal government proceeds in these matters, and Google may settle this lawsuit in the hopes of securing outcomes favorable to the company.”

Despite calls for answers, Democratic senators have limited ability to force action as Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress.

Google didn’t immediately provide a comment.

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