Swiggy has led a $180 million funding round for bike taxi startup Rapido, the two companies said on Friday, as the Indian food delivery company wants to expand its fleet network across the nation. TVS Motor Company, as well as current investors Westbridge, Shell Ventures, and Nexus Ventures, participated in Rapido’s Series D fundraising round. Rapido is now valued at over $800 million in the latest round.
The six-year-old company, which also has CRED’s Kunal Shah and Spotify India’s Amarjit Singh Batra as investors, offers its two-wheeler service in roughly 100 Indian towns. Rapido claims to have over 25 million clients and 1.5 million captains, according to the company, which has raised $310 million too far. Rapido’s significant concentration on two-wheelers has allowed it to continue to steadily develop at a time when most other fleet startups and corporations, like Ola and Uber, have failed to make deeper inroads in India (in part due to the unrealistic economic model).
According to a source familiar with the situation, a number of other companies, including Swiggy’s main competitor Zomato, have been trying to support Rapido in recent months. “We admire Rapido’s perseverance in revolutionizing India’s transportation and logistics market,” Swiggy co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety remarked.
“Swiggy and Rapido share a goal of creating a logistics platform that gives riders more options and better revenues. While we’ve already collaborated, this investment allows us to work even closer together to maximize the platforms’ synergies and increase the value we bring to consumers and delivery executives/captains across the country,” he said. Rapido co-founder Aravind Sanka stated that the company will “learn from Swiggy’s experience” in order to grow “throughout” the country and improve its passengers’ experience.
“In addition, TVS Motor, who are passionate about electric vehicles and the future of transportation, will assist us in our expansion.” On the backbone of our solid, global-standard technology, we intend to accelerate our pace of becoming a household name as we expand our regions and services,” he added. In the following year, the company intends to service 50 million users, he added.
