Rapido was founded in 2015 by two IIT alumni, Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and one PESU alumnus, SR Rishikesh, who also founded the company ‘thekarrier’. It is basically a bike version of Uber that can be used for a short commute and is much better because it can help the passenger reach the destination even in the high traffic prone areas.
A comfortable and safe drive is the people’s choice as Rapido has created 500,000 jobs in the nation and is still working on capturing more cities to provide their services.
Captains As Drivers
The drivers are known as “captains” in the application are working from 7 in the morning till 11 at night. Rapido also welcomes women as their drivers.
They charge a basic fare starting from ₹15 and adding ₹3 with every additional kilometers they travel. The application is easily available for apple and android users and can be downloaded from the play store. It is a fast, safe, cheap, and customer-friendly application.
Strategizing
Swiggy, a Softbank-backed company, is strategizing to invest in the bike taxi firm, and there have been some talks related to the same investment deal. The deal has been finalized at a $200 million lead to Swiggy, where the initial investment is $100 million, and the remaining would come from existing and new investors.
Investment will strengthen the logistics of Swiggy and back it up with the mobility business.
Zomato has also tried to finalize some deals with the bike taxi version company, Rapido, but it didn’t end anywhere. After facing backlash due to the pandemic, Rapido has entered again in a market as strong as ever, and it covers around 10 million rides every month.
Investment and Funding
In Aug 2021, Rapido raised $52 million in the latest funding from new investors, including Shell Ventures, Yamaha, Kunal Shah, founder of CRED, Amarjit Singh Batra, CEO, Spotify India and Positive Moves Consulting.
Rapido has also raised $130 million in funding from several investors like Westbridge AIF, Nexus Ventures, Sabre Investment, Skycatcher LLC, BAce Fund, and Integrated Growth Capital.
The bike taxi version earns about eighty per cent (80%) of the revenue. The rest twenty (20%) is from logistics, food delivery. So Rapido is expanding its horizons by delivering food and also non-food categories.
Ola, cab service application is the competition of Rapido in the segment. The company has also offered to buy out Rapido in a $500 million deal, but the deal didn’t get anywhere, so there was no further progress in the same matter.
Rapido-for all!
Rapido has both full-time working captains and part-time captains, and around ten percent of them are college students trying to work and earn a living in a disastrous time such as the covid pandemic.
They are getting about ₹18,000 every month, and it also depends on the number of rides they cover. The mode of payment is by Paytm, Rapido Wallet, and cash.
Currently, Rapido offers its services in more than 100 Indian cities and has an over 16 million customer base. The company claims to have over 1.5 million driver-partners.
Conclusion
To conclude, a women captain shares her experience with Rapido as safe. She is a part-timer and drives between 6:30 to 10pm at night, which she finds safe because of the GPS tracker in the application.
She rides her scooter, Royal Enfield, and sometimes Pulsar for the rides and covers almost three to five rides every day. She gets a lot of surprised looks from her customers when they see a women driver. Never has she experienced a bad encounter with any customer and is a happy customer.
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