Anton Chirkunov

Founder & CEO Wheely

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Anton Chirkunov is the Swiss-Russian founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wheely, a luxury chauffeur service operating in London, New York, Paris and Dubai. The company he runs today is the third version of the one he started: Wheely began in Zurich in 2010 as a data-aggregation app for taxis, modelled on what Booking.com had done for hotels, launched as a Toyota Prius taxi aggregator in London and Russia in 2012, lost the mass-market fight, and relaunched in London in 2018 as a premium chauffeur service with Mercedes-Benz vehicles, academy-trained drivers and a membership structure. What distinguishes Wheely now is less the cars than the positioning: it sells discretion, and in 2020 Chirkunov demonstrated what that was worth by refusing a Moscow government demand for real-time passenger journey data on GDPR grounds, accepting a three-month suspension of the Russian business rather than comply.

Career Highlights

• Founded Wheely in Zurich in 2010 as a taxi data-aggregation app and has led it as Chief Executive Officer since — reportedly without holding a driving licence himself at the outset.
• Pivoted out of mass-market ride-hailing into luxury chauffeur service, relaunching in London in 2018 with Mercedes-Benz vehicles after the original Prius-based aggregator proved unable to compete.
• Built the service across London, New York, Paris and Dubai, with tiers up to members-only Range Rover and Mercedes-Maybach S-Class classes, all with academy-trained chauffeurs.
• Started with roughly $2.5 million raised largely from friends and family and grew total funding to around $43 million by 2024, including a $15 million Series B in 2019 led by Concentric.
• Won an early $25,000 grant from Pavel Durov’s Start Fellows programme, alongside grants from Russian innovation foundations.
• Moved the company’s headquarters from Moscow to London in 2019.
• Refused Moscow’s transport department’s 2020 demand for real-time passenger journey data, citing GDPR obligations, complained to the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office, and accepted a three-month suspension of Russian operations rather than hand the data over.
• Held 59.6 per cent of the company’s shares as of 2018, retaining founder control through multiple funding rounds.

Professional Journey

Chirkunov founded Wheely in Zurich in 2010, at which point, by his own account, he did not have a driving licence. The original idea was not ride-hailing as it came to be understood but aggregation: a data layer over existing taxi supply, in the way Booking.com sits over hotel inventory rather than owning rooms. The service launched properly in 2012, in London with Toyota Prius vehicles and in Russia the same year, reaching Saint Petersburg in 2013.

That version did not work. The window in which a small, thinly funded aggregator could win the standard ride market closed quickly, as capital poured into the category and the economics became a subsidy war that only the largest balance sheets could survive. Chirkunov’s response was not to raise more and fight but to change markets entirely.

The relaunch came in London in 2018, with Mercedes-Benz vehicles and an explicitly luxury proposition. The bet was that the mass market’s race to the bottom had left the top of the market underserved: passengers for whom a car arriving is not the point, and for whom consistency, discretion and the conduct of the chauffeur are. Wheely built around that — academy-trained chauffeurs, a membership structure gating its highest tiers, and service classes rising through Business SUV and Range Rover Long Wheelbase to Mercedes-Maybach S-Class. The marketing language is about refinement, comfort and absolute privacy, and privacy is the operative word.

In 2019 the company moved its headquarters from Moscow to London and raised a $15 million Series B led by Concentric, building on roughly $2.5 million of early friends-and-family money, a $25,000 grant from Pavel Durov’s Start Fellows programme and support from Russian innovation foundations. Total funding reached about $43 million by 2024. Chirkunov retained majority control throughout, holding 59.6 per cent of shares as of 2018.

The defining episode came in 2020. Moscow’s department of transport demanded that Wheely share passenger journey data in real time. Wheely refused, on the grounds that as a company subject to GDPR it could not lawfully hand over its passengers’ movements, and filed a complaint with the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office. The Russian operation was suspended for three months. For most transport businesses that would be a straightforward regulatory defeat; for one whose product is discretion, refusing was the only position consistent with what it sells.

Wheely today lists London, New York, Paris and Dubai as its cities. Moscow, where the company began its commercial life and was once headquartered, no longer appears on its own website.

Education

University of St. Gallen

Bachelor of Arts, Economics