Bengaluru- based Bike Taxi Startup: Rapido raises $177.5 Mn via Foodtech Giant Swiggy, TVS Motor
- ByStartupStory | April 15, 2022
Rapido, the Bengaluru-based bike taxi startup, has raised around $177.5 Mn in a funding round led by Swiggy, the food delivery aggregator. Another new investor TVS Motors also participated in the round. Apart from them, capital was also infused from Rapido’s existing investors – Shell Ventures, WestBridge Capital, Nexus Ventures.
Almost a couple of months after media reports, the development came in saying that Swiggy was in talks in order to lead Rapido’s funding round.
In exchange for 1,99,948 Series D CCPS and 10 equity shares, TVS Motors pumped in $15 Mn, while Swiggy infused $124.6 Mn in the round. About $30 Mn was invested by WestBridge Capital, while the remaining amount was infused by Nexus Ventures. Swiggy is likely to hold a 30% stake in Rapido, with this investment. Currently, Swiggy holds 1,99,958 shares (including equity shares & preference shares) of the startup.
It must be noted that in order to add other existing investors or a debt element to it, the round size can further be increased.
Almost eight months after the startup raised $52 Mn in its Series C round, the fresh round of funding came in. The round back then saw participation from Shell Ventures, Everblue Management, Kunal Shah, Pawan Munjal, Nexus Ventures, among others.
Rapido, founded in 2015 by Rishikesh SR, Pavan Guntupalli, and Aravind Sanka, claims to have a presence in more than 100 Indian cities with over 15 Mn customers and 25 Mn app downloads till date. Auto services, bike taxi, and peer-to-peer delivery service for essentials, such as medicines and food, through Rapido Local have been offered by the startup.
As prolonged lockdown prevented stepping outside, Rapido was one of the startups that was severely affected by the pandemic. This resulted to deliver essential products, such as grocery and dairy products has been pivoted by Rapido.
Rapido, now faces challenges from Ola and Uber as they have also forayed into bike taxis, as it initially used to dominate the bike taxi space in the country,.
In FY21, a total income of INR 87.9 Cr was generated by the startup, in FY20 a 54.4% jump from INR 56.9 Cr. The startup managed to reduce its expenses to INR 254 Cr in FY21 from INR 301 Cr in FY20, while revenue from operations climbed to INR 75.6 Cr in FY21.
Rapido further narrowed its loss from INR 244 Cr in FY20 to INR 166.3 Cr in FY21.
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