Ali Hasan
In a world full of Ola & Uber, be someone Like Rapido
Introduction – Rapido is an Indian online bike taxi aggregator and logistics service provider based out of Bangalore, India. Founded in 2015, the company operates in over 100 cities across the country.
Rapido is a platform where people can book a bike ride through a mobile app while traveling solo. The company’s mission is to bring people traveling in a similar direction together, thereby reducing the number of vehicles on the road.
This not only helps reduce traffic but also carbon footprints and air pollution. It further augments the concept of not owning everything by creating viable and accessible options to share.
Early Days – The company was founded in 2015 by the name of theKarrier who are as follows:-
- Aravind Sanka,
- Pavan Guntupalli, and
- SR Rishikesh.
While both Pavan & Aravind are from IITs, SR Rishikesh pursued his education from PES University. The foundation of Rapido dates back to theKarrier days, which was modeled on a logistics and supply-chain driven model that enabled their clients to seamlessly transport their belongings.
But the founders started the startup which worked on the bike taxi business model which meant that they could use bikes to ease the transportation requirements of the customers because going for cars would again mean an added financial burden for the company, tons of competitions, facing traffic, and delays.
Therefore, with the simple idea to ease the journey of the customers, they started working on Rapido and the business became quite successful with the help of hard work, persistence, and dedication.
The basic idea of the 3 founders was to hire people especially those who owned two-wheelers. Along with that, the founders wanted to bring up something new, which was way different from Ola and Uber as they invested heavily in vehicles.
They believed in making an app like the Rapido captain app that will help the two-wheeler owners to register themselves and verify their details with the company. They thought Ola & Uber can never be affordable to all on a daily basis and the traffic in big cities is increasing every day. So they thought to dodge some of the obvious problems and plan for successful motorbike rides.
By September 2018, reports were that Rapido has over 15,000 registered riders, with average rides of 30,000 per day. By 2019, Rapido co-founder Aravind Sanka claimed that the company has created more than 500,000 jobs in India. By November 2019, the company claimed to have 1 crore registered users.
After the breakout of COVID-19 pandemic, Rapido expanded its operations in logistics, providing hyperlocal delivery for local businesses and e-commerce companies. In October 2020, Rapido launched on-demand auto rickshaw hailing services in 14 cities across India.
The Rapido app allows the user to book a ride, after which a rider (called “Captain”) arrives at the location. The fare includes a base fare of ₹15 in addition to ₹3 for every kilometer of the ride.
The “Captains” need to register through the Rapido-Captain app and they get validated by submitting the required documents. They can use motorcycles, scooters, or e-bikes, but the vehicle cannot be older than 2010.
Marketing Strategy – Rapido markets their bike taxi services as:-
- Quick,
- Convenient and
- Affordable
Their ads focus on the fact that since you don’t use a car as a taxi, you don’t need to pay more if you’re travelling alone. Since a bike can travel quite easily in case of a traffic jam, it’s also more convenient and quicker than travelling through a car taxi.
They have also used a lot of hastags in the marketing campaigns such as:-
- #SaveMoney
- #BeatTheTraffic
- #GoRapido
- #GoOhhWithRapido
User Base & Valuation – Rapido is India’s first and fastest-growing Bike taxi app with a whopping 25 million+ app downloads. We are now running operations in more than 100 cities. They have crossed more than 10 million happy customers and 100 million rides. They have more than 1 million drivers which they call as Captains.
As of 2019, they have a valuation of more than Rs 1,000 crores but since they raised a fresh round of funding in 2021, their valuation might be in the region of Rs 1,500 crores.
Revenues & Losses – Rapido recorded a 13X jump in revenue, to the tune of Rs 10.64 crore, in FY19, against revenues of Rs 79.90 lakh posted for the previous financial year. While the revenue surged for Rapido, the company also posted a 5X increase in losses for this financial year.
As opposed to Rs 10.34 crore loss reported last year, the losses widened to Rs 53.29 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2019. The losses for the company come against the backdrop of its “total expenses” increasing by 5.7X. From Rs 11 crore expenses it incurred in FY18, Rapido’s expenses for FY19 increased to Rs 63.93 crore.
Funding – Rapido has raised a total of $122 million in funding over 9 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 6, 2021 from a Series C round. Rapido is funded by a total of 32 investors. Everblue Bangladesh and Westbridge Capital are the most recent investors. Some of the other investors are as follows:-
- AdvantEdge Founders
- Skycatcher
- Thompson Taraz Managers
- Astarc Ventures India
- Technology Fund
- Inegrated Capital
- Nexus Venture Partners
Hero MotoCorp chairman Pawan Munjal and former Google India head Rajan Anandan are among those who also have stakes in Rapido.
Acquisitions – Rapido has acquired 2 organizations. They are as follows:-
- Getbike
- Vahanalytics
Controversies – Rapido was involved in a major controversy which was a legal matter. Rapido run into legal troubles in various cities. In October 2018, several bikes were seized in Coimbatore as Rapido was operating without a permit from the transport department.
In July 2019, Madras High Court banned Rapido’s operations across Tamil Nadu, while it’s iOS application was removed from the App Store for violating local laws. In August 2019, the court lifted the ban and allowed the company to resume services in the state until the state government framed new regulations for bike taxi services.
In February 2019, more than 200 bike taxis belonging to Ola Cabs and Rapido were seized in Bangalore as the state transport department declared bike taxis to be illegal.
In April 2019, more than 170 Rapido bikes were impounded and an investigation was launched against Rapido by the city cybercrime police. Despite the ban, the company was reported to be illegally operating in Bangalore, with Rapido Captains disguised as food delivery executives.
In February 2020, they were banned across Assam, after the transport department found that the company was operating without a commercial license or permit from the DTO. In October 2020, shortly after it commenced operations in Mumbai, the city’s transport authorities asked the company to stop its services as it was operating without the government’s permission.
The Karnataka High Court at Bangalore in a recent case filed by a leading transport aggregator has observed that under the law, a motorcycle taxi can be used for hire on which a passenger could be carried on pillion. Court further observed that a motorcycle taxi has been categorized as a transport vehicle by the Central Government under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
Therefore, in light of the provisions under law, the Court allowed various aggregators, to make their respective applications to the relevant State Road Transport Authority for renting of motorcycle/taxi service for hire.
They have also filed its application with the State Transport Authority for motorcycle/taxi service and is looking forward to a positive response. Rapido is working very closely with various state governments and is open to working with Karnataka Government to frame guidelines for regulating the same.
Present Time & Future Goals – Presently Rapido has also started delivering food and groceries as after there was a lockdown due to the pandemic and literally no one was using their app to book rides. Hence, it was actually a wise decision to enter the food and grocery segment to compensate for the losses caused by the lockdown.
It was also a wise decision because many companies needed deliver partners to deliver essential stuff which was the need of the hour. They partnered with BigBasket, Big Bazaar, Swiggy, Zomato, Spencer and various other companies to deliver essential stuff during the pandemic. This was a strategic partnership and result in a win-win situation which benefitted everyone involved.
They have future plans hire 100 women captains in Bengaluru by the end of 2022. They have filed for the bike taxi service application with the State Transport Authority in Karnataka.
Conclusion – To sum it up, Rapido has gained a lot of momentum since the company started. We desperately needed a startup like Rapido because both Ola & Uber were expensive, time consuming and not feasible if you were travelling solo. So far the company has grown tremendously and they have plans to expand even further.
We wish them all the very best for their future and hope one day they’ll become a successful as well as profitable company.
