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’t have access to on-demand rides with the same convenience, accessibility, and affordability of typical ride-hail platforms, like Uber and Lyft.

“Once 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’s an inferior experience because everyone can’t ride together,” Iommi, now 25, told TechCrunch. “The other option was to reserve a charter vehicle days or weeks in advance.”

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.

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 French Oceanic term for an extension of one’s family.

“We like to say that the mantra of rideshare is bringing people together,” Iommi said.

Five years later, Fetii now claims to be operating in 68 cities across six states – including Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Phoenix, and Scottsdale – and transporting over 200,000 passengers each month. And while Fetii does offer the ability to reserve rides in advance, Iommi says the majority – 75% to 80% – are on-demand.