Google, Xiaomi show interest in investing in ‘Where Is My Train’ app

Google wants to acquire ‘Where Is My Train’ app for around $30 million-$40 million, while Xiaomi seems to be keen on just making an investment.
Google, Xiaomi show interest in investing in ‘Where Is My Train’ app
Google, Xiaomi show interest in investing in ‘Where Is My Train’ app
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Where Is My Train, an app that tells you where your train is in real-time even without the use of internet or location, is seeing investor interest from global players. Google and Xiaomi have shown interest in the startup operated by a company Sigmoid Labs.

Google wants to acquire the company and is willing to pay around $30 million-$40 million. Xiaomi, on the other hand, seems to be keen on just making an investment in the company. It must be mentioned here that neither Google, Sigmoid Labs nor Xiaomi have confirmed the news. These details are based on information provided by sources.

Besides the advantage of working offline, Where Is My Train has a huge user base having seen 10 million downloads. This may be one of the highest figures for apps in this genre. There are a couple of apps which compete with Where Is My Train, like RailYatri and Ixigo. While RailYatri is backed by Nandan Nilekani, Ixigo boasts of high profile investors like Sequoia Capital and SAIF Partners. Where Is My Train is available in 7 regional languages which is another advantage for it.

From Google’s perspective, its ambitious plan to add the billion users to its fold, called the ‘Next Billion Users’ initiative, vibes well with an app like this. Google knows that to get to a much larger base in India with over 390 million internet users, it has to move to the tier 2 and 3 cities and even villages and an app with local language capability and the added advantage of functioning even without internet and GPS offers a very attractive vehicle and no wonder it had held advanced level discussions to acquire Where Is My Train. And Google’s overall plans for India include a rural foray, where it has estimated that it could clock revenues of around $50 billion.

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