From Taxi Startup to Super App: Patoko and the Albanian Founder Betting on Scale

The Albanian Super App Rewriting Daily Life

On a humid summer night in Tirana, the streets hum with the sound of Fiats and Mercedes taxis and now Chinese electric cars weaving through roundabouts. The city, frenetic and hopeful, is the beating heart of a small nation caught between tradition and the digital age. Yet on the phones of thousands of Albanians, another hum has begun, a digital one. A purple-and-white icon glows quietly from the home screens of 120,000 users: Patoko.

What began as a modest taxi-hailing tool has, in three years, transformed into something bigger: Albania’s first super app. To call it a “local Uber” is to miss the point. Patoko is not just about rides. It is about embedding itself in everyday life, from booking beauty treatments to managing loyalty rewards or sending packages, from tracking a baby’s development to ordering cleaning services for Airbnb hosts.

Behind this unassuming piece of software is Arber Kadia, a salesman turned founder, whose eclectic career spanning sports, media, politics, and tech, makes him a figure as unconventional as the app itself. His bet is bold: that Albania, a country of fewer than three million people, can be the launchpad for the type of platform that changed entire economies in Asia.

Patoko is not just about rides. It is about embedding itself in everyday life, from booking beauty treatments to managing loyalty rewards or sending packages, from tracking a baby’s development to ordering cleaning services for Airbnb hosts.

The Spark in a Crowded Market

Patoko’s origin story is deceptively simple. Albania had taxis, but not convenience. Tourists arriving in Tirana, where tourism has soared past six million annual visitors, found themselves haggling on sidewalks. Locals, too, lacked the predictability that ride-hailing apps in London or Berlin had made mundane.

Kadia spotted the gap. He saw, too, how platforms like Bolt and Careem had grown out of cities far smaller than Silicon Valley imagined. “Scale doesn’t always start in the obvious places,” he says. “It starts where the problem is sharpest.”

What he built first was functional: a clean, fast ride-hailing app. Drivers were trained, pickups happened in under five minutes, payments could be cash or card. The early days were gritty. Convincing drivers to join required patience, while passengers needed persuasion to trust an app for something as habitual as taxis.

And yet the demand was instant. Within months, ride volumes grew double digits month-on-month. By early 2025, Patoko had more than 700 drivers on its platform and was processing tens of thousands of rides per month.

“Scale doesn’t always start in the obvious places,” he says. “It starts where the problem is sharpest.”

From Rides to “Everything”

What distinguishes Patoko is not that it solved the transport problem, but that it refused to stop there. Kadia and his small but ambitious team looked at their daily active user base, already surpassing 4,500 a day, and asked: what else could live here?

The answer was everything that touches urban life. Bookings for hairdressers and restaurants. Fast cleaning for Airbnb hosts. Loyalty points (“Tokos”) that reward both drivers and passengers. In bundling these services, Patoko has begun to mirror Asia’s super apps: WeChat in China, Grab in Singapore, Gojek in Indonesia. But the Albanian version has its own DNA. One part necessity, one part cultural fit. “In smaller markets,” Kadia argues, “apps need to be multi-purpose to survive. You can’t win by doing just one thing.”

This bundling also makes economic sense. Acquiring users is expensive. Retaining them through utility is smarter. If someone uses Patoko to book a taxi at night, they are more likely to open it again the next morning to order coffee delivery, or next week to schedule a haircut. Each action locks the app deeper into daily routines.

“In smaller markets,” Kadia argues, “apps need to be multi-purpose to survive. You can’t win by doing just one thing.”

The Man Behind the App

If the app is eclectic, so too is its founder. Arber Kadia grew up in Albania during the 1990s, in a country still reeling from the collapse of communism. After earning a scholarship to Eton College and later graduating from Bristol University, he tried his hand at many paths since returning home: a sporting career, sales roles, television, even a stint in politics. Each chapter was short, but formative.

“I was never afraid of moving between worlds,” he reflects. “Every time I learned something new about people, about what drives them.”

Those lessons matter now. Running a startup in Albania is not like running one in London or San Francisco. Talent is scarce, regulation is fluid, capital is hard to find. Kadia has leaned on Silicon Valley advisors and international networks, but the daily grind of building has been distinctly local, persuading merchants in Tirana cafés, training drivers in person, explaining to investors why Albania could be more than an afterthought.

This polymath background also shapes his leadership style. He is part salesman, part community builder, part technologist. “Being a founder here is about resilience,” he says. “There are no safety nets. You either make it work, or you don’t.”

“I was never afraid of moving between worlds,” he reflects. “Every time I learned something new about people, about what drives them.”

The Economics of Super Apps

Globally, the concept of a super app is well understood. The logic is bundling: if a single platform can offer rides, food, payments, and messaging, it can capture both user attention and economic value. The model thrives on retention (users rarely leave) and monetization (cross-selling multiple services).

But Albania is not Singapore or China. The challenge is scale. With a population of fewer than three million, is there enough volume to sustain a super app?

Kadia’s answer is two-fold. First, tourism. Albania’s recent boom has made Tirana and the Adriatic coast hotspots. Tourists bring new demand for rides, food, and services. Demand that is seasonal, but high margin. Second, expansion. Patoko is already exploring franchise-style models for North Macedonia, Croatia, and Italy. In those markets, the technology remains centralised, while local operators handle drivers and regulation.

The economics, then, are not just about Albania. They are about Albania as a testbed. A place small enough to experiment, nimble enough to adapt, but ambitious enough to export lessons outward.

The logic is bundling: if a single platform can offer rides, food, payments, and messaging, it can capture both user attention and economic value. The model thrives on retention (users rarely leave) and monetization (cross-selling multiple services).

Setbacks, Lessons, and Unforeseen Impacts

No founder journey is smooth. Kadia speaks candidly about moments when growth lagged, or when the app’s session volumes rose but conversions did not keep pace. “Every spike in traffic forces you to re-think the funnel,” he admits. These are challenges not just of marketing, but of conversion psychology, turning downloads into habits.

Other setbacks were cultural. Convincing users to trust online payments, for example, or persuading merchants to integrate digital bookings when pen-and-paper calendars still dominate.

And then there are the unforeseen stories.

One Patoko driver told Kadia about a passenger he picked up in Tirana who was visibly distressed. The man, suffering chest pains, had called his doctor in panic. The doctor’s advice was astonishing in its simplicity: “Don’t wait for an ambulance. Take a taxi. It will get you here faster.”

That passenger opened Patoko, ordered a ride, and within minutes was at the clinic. The driver, shaken by the urgency, later recounted the episode to Kadia. “That was the moment I realised,” he says, “that we weren’t just moving people. We were changing the way people think about time, trust, and even survival.”

Digital transformation, often spoken of in abstract terms, had manifested in the most visceral way possible. A ride-hailing app, born out of convenience, had become part of the infrastructure of everyday life.

“That was the moment I realised,” he says, “that we weren’t just moving people. We were changing the way people think about time, trust, and even survival.”

Why Albania, Why Now

For outside observers, Albania may seem peripheral. Yet in the story of Patoko, the country becomes central. It is a place where mobility is essential, a capital city that bursts with traffic, coastal towns swelling with seasonal tourism, and a young population eager for modern conveniences.

It is also a place where innovation feels more personal. When Kadia trains a driver or signs a merchant, the distance between founder and user is minimal. That intimacy, he believes, is Patoko’s secret weapon. “We’re not just building software,” he says. “We’re building trust, block by block, café by café.”

“We’re not just building software,” he says. “We’re building trust, block by block, café by café.”

The Road Ahead

Patoko’s ambition is clear: to be more than Albania’s taxi app. To be the everyday app for the Balkans, and eventually, for diasporas and tourists beyond.

The challenges are formidable: global competitors with deep pockets, the complexity of scaling loyalty programs, the unpredictability of regulation. Yet the opportunity is equally large. As super apps become the new default in emerging markets, Europe still has white space.

For now, the purple-and-white icon remains a distinctly Albanian story. But as Tirana’s streets buzz and its cafés brim, one founder is betting that from this small, ambitious nation, a super app can rise, and perhaps rewrite the digital map of a continent.

Patoko’s ambition is clear: to be more than Albania’s taxi app. To be the everyday app for the Balkans, and eventually, for diasporas and tourists beyond.