Rapido, a bike taxi company, has secured $180 million in a Series D round headed by food tech giant Swiggy, with participation from TVS Motor Company, Westbridge, Shell Ventures, and Nexus Ventures, as well as existing investors Westbridge, Shell Ventures, and Nexus Ventures. The company has raised about $130 million to far.
This round comes as Swiggy’s competitor Zomato unveiled 10-minute food delivery, causing a stir among restaurant and delivery partners, as well as customers. In 10 minutes, the food-tech company hopes to serve biryani, momos, bread omelette, poha, coffee, tea, and even instant noodles.
“Swiggy’s participation in this round will build on the synergies between the two companies. With a common mission to deliver superior customer experience through higher fleet availability, it will also provide additional earnings for both Swiggy’s delivery executives and Rapido’s captains,” said the company in a press statement.
“Swiggy and Rapido share a vision to build a logistics platform that empowers riders through more opportunities and higher earnings. While we’ve already been working together, this investment facilitates closer alignment to leverage the synergies between the platforms and improve the value we provide to both consumers and delivery executives/captains across the country,” said Sriharsha Majety, Co-founder and CEO of Swiggy.
Rapido intends to use the cash to improve its technology, amplify and develop its teams across a wide range of competencies, and expand total supply in metros, tier 1, 2, and 3 cities.
In addition, the firm stated in a statement that it will invest in all three of its categories, namely bike-taxi, auto, and delivery, to boost captain earnings and improve customer experience in the 100+ locations where it operates.
Rapido Rental is a first-of-its-kind multi-stop bike rental that was founded in 2015 by Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and Rishikesh SR to cater to the needs of people who have to complete multiple tasks at different locations and want to avoid the hassle of multiple bookings and waiting for the ride to arrive.
Rapido is now one of the most popular 2W ride-sharing services, with over 25 million app downloads and about 15 lakh users, and has served over 10 million clients and provided over 100 million rides. Rapido is used in almost 100 cities across India, with Hyderabad, Kolkata, Delhi, Bengaluru, Guwahati, and Jaipur being the most popular.
Aravind Sanka, Co-Founder, Rapido, “We look forward to learning from Swiggy’s experience to scale up throughout the country and enhance our captains’ / customers’ experience, who are the backbone of our business. Besides, TVS Motor, which is very passionate about EVs and the future of mobility, will help us in further expansion. We hope to accelerate our pace of becoming a household name as we increase our geographies and services, on the backbone of our robust, global-standard technology.”
