Rapido Enters Cab Business With Intra City Mobility Solution

Rapido has increased competition in the urban mobility sector by announcing its expansion into intra-city cab service called Rapido Cabs. The company has started offering the service in three cities Delhi NCR, Bengaluru and Hyderabad with about 100,000 vehicles on its platform.

India's ride-hailing segment has long been dominated by Uber and Ola, and they have become synonymous with cab services. BlueSmart and InDrive Companies like BluSmart and inDrive have ventured into this space, but Ola and Uber have continued their monopoly in metro cities.

Founded in 2015, Bengaluru-based Rapido is providing two- and three-wheeler riding services through its application in more than 100 cities in India. It has over 10 million customers across the country, and has over 60% share in the bike taxi market, which it expects to leverage to Rapido Cabs.

The company plans to expand Rapido Cab Service, a Rapido cab service, to major cities by the end of next year.

Rapido co-founder Pavan Guntunpally said the platform could attract more consumers through its "minimum price guarantee" model, as the market is very sensitive to prices.

Rapido is relying on its "zero-commission" model. "Our innovative SaaS-based platform revolutionizes the traditional commissioning system for drivers, tackling the persistent challenge of sharing commissions with aggregators. That drivers will only have to pay a minimal software usage fee.

Pawan Guntunpally said the company has introduced a software as a subscription model instead of the commission model used by other cab aggregators. Drivers will have to pay a subscription fee to use the Rapido platform at certain stages of earnings.

The entry of Rapido comes at a time when Uber and Ola Electric Mobility are looking to tap more geographies while transitioning to Uber and Ola Electric Mobility. Uber has launched Uber Green with plans to add 25,000 electric cars to its platform. Ola also plans to add 10,000 electric vehicles to its fleet.

Pawan Guntunpally said Rapido is also continuing to electrify its fleet. And we have partnered with several electric vehicle providers like Zep Electric to electrify our fleet of two-wheelers. We are going to try the same partnership approach for Rapido Cabs as well.

The Delhi government notified the Delhi Motor Vehicle Aggregators and Delivery Service Providers Scheme, which mandates all cab aggregators and delivery service providers to switch to electric fleet by 2030.

Rapido has raised over US$300 million in various funding rounds so far, and is valued at around US$800 million. Its investors include Swiggy and TVS Motors.