Rapido Raises $177.5 Million Funding From Swiggy, TVS Motors, Others
Rapido, a Bengaluru-based bike taxi startup, has raised around $177.5 Million in a funding round led by food tech giant Swiggy. New investor TVS Motors and existing investors WestBridge Capital, Nexus Ventures, and Shell Ventures also participated in the funding round.
First reported by Inc42, Swiggy infused $124.6 Million in the round while WestBridge Capital invested $30 Million. TVS Motors invested $15 Million in Rapido, while the remaining sum came from Shell Ventures and Nexus Ventures.
Rapido | India’s Largest Bike Taxi Service Provider
Founded by Aravind Sanka, Rishikesh SR and Pavan Guntupalli in 2015, Rapido offers bike taxis, auto services and peer-to-peer delivery services for essentials, such as food and medicines, through Rapido Local. The Bengaluru-based startup claims to have a presence in more than 100 Indian cities, with more than 15 million customers, 1.5 million+ captains (driver-partners) and 25 Million app downloads to date.
This round values the seven-year-old Rapido at around $830 million, which is a significant jump in the company’s valuation from $235 million during the previous round.
Rapido, which claims to be India’s largest bike taxi service provider, now faces challenges from Ola and Uber as they have also forayed into the bike taxi segment. The startup does around 10 million rides every month, and 80% of the volume comes from the bike taxi segment, while the remaining comes from auto services and logistics and on-demand delivery, as per Entrackr.
In the fiscal year 2021, Rapido’s total income stood at Rs 87.9 crore, which is a 54% jump from Rs 56.9 crore in FY20. Additionally, the company’s total expenses were reduced by 15.5% to Rs 254.36 crore in FY21. Rapido also managed to control its losses by around 32% in the fiscal year ending March 2021, as per its regulatory filings.
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