Roppen Transportation Servcies based out of Hyderabad runs a startup Rapido, a bike pooling service. The company has raised Rs 2.14 crore ($329,230) from US and UK-based investors Skycatcher Fund from the US and Thompson Taraz Managers from the UK.
The funds will go into building the team and expanding operations to other cities, the company has disclosed.
The previous round of funding received by Rapido was to the tune of Rs 2.75 crore and at that time the investors were Battery Road Digital Holdings LLC, US and Astarc Ventures, an existing investor. A third, Indian technology fund, whose name was withheld had also participated in that round of funding.
The startup has been on the prowl to beef up its funding and had targeted $3 million and this was reported around 5 months back.
Operating out of three cities, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi, Rapido has actually been incurring losses in its working results. The startup has been founded by 3 IIT alumni, Aravind Sanka, Rishikesh SR and Pavan Guntupalli. The startup was originally backed financially by Rajan Anandan, Google India MD and Pawan Munjal of the Hero Group.
The company has not yet reached break even. As per the VCCircle report, Rapido’s revenue for FY16 grew 20X to Rs 1.23 crore from Rs 6 lakh the year before. However, its losses widened from Rs 6,135 in FY15 to Rs 1.28 crore in FY16.
There are others in the same space, like Baxi, which operates in Haryana and parts of UP. And then there are the biggies, OLA and UBER who are already in or keen to get into the bike sharing business. They are looking for buyouts in the space. The action may just about heat up in this nascent business in the days to come