Rapido, the eight-year-old Indian bike taxi startup, is increasing into the cab market within the South Asian nation, the place Uber and its homegrown competitor Ola dominate.
The Bengaluru-based startup has begun a pilot of its cab service within the Southern metropolis of Hyderabad, TechCrunch has realized and confirmed. The corporate plans to broaden the service to different cities, together with Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Chandigarh. The Delhi-NCR launch of Rapido cabs will happen as early as subsequent week, three individuals conversant in the matter advised TechCrunch.
Till just lately, Rapido clients have been in a position to hail a experience on a motorized motorbike or a three-wheeled auto rickshaw. The corporate’s resolution so as to add vehicles within the combine diversifies its choices and will assist it broaden its buyer base. It additionally creates a stickiness for current clients who might need beforehand opted to take an Uber on these events once they wanted a experience in a automotive.
“At Rapido, we’re thrilled to share that our check run in Hyderabad for Rapido Cabs is off to a incredible begin. The town’s vibrant market has warmly embraced us, and the constructive response is really heartening. As we navigate our path ahead, we’re dedicated to preserving you carefully knowledgeable about our progress and eagerly anticipate bringing our modern companies to different cities,” a Rapido spokesperson mentioned in a press release to TechCrunch.
Along with providing cabs, Rapido is trying to combine intercity bus ticket reserving inside its app by partnering with Zingbus, a supply advised TechCrunch. The partnership would assist Rapido develop its gross merchandise worth and Gurugram-based Zingbus broaden its buyer base.
Rapido and Zingbus didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon the partnership.
Based in 2015, Rapido operates in additional than 100 cities in India and has over 25 million app downloads. The startup additionally has over 10 million clients and crossed 100 million rides, per the statistics out there on its web site.
For a while, India noticed a duopoly within the app-based cab market the place Uber and Ola held 90% share collectively. Nevertheless, the nation has began seeing the shift in the previous few months, with domestically grown BluSmart coming into with its all-electric fleet and Mountain View-headquartered InDrive moving into the market with its distinctive haggling mannequin.
Though India has quite a few cabs, the price-sensitive nature of its inhabitants has led firms together with Uber and Ola to supply bike taxis in main cities. Rapido comes as a stable different to those firms, with its huge presence. The startup touts to have over one million bike drivers on the platform to supply inexpensive intra-city journey and last-mile connectivity.
Nonetheless, the shortage of readability on bike taxi laws in several Indian states makes it more durable for all platforms to proceed to challenge their development out there.
Rapido has raised $324 million in complete, in keeping with the info out there on Tracxn, with the final spherical of $180 million introduced in April final yr. The startup counts VC companies together with WestBridge, Shell Ventures, Nexus Enterprise Companions and AdvantEdge, amongst its traders. It additionally has backing from meals supply aggregator Swiggy and Indian two-wheeler large TVS Motor Firm.