Rapido was launched in 2015, and fast-forward to 2024, and it has become a unicorn. In a span of just eight years, it has reached the mark of 1 billion USD in terms of valuation. Despite having tough competition in India's ride-hailing services, the way Rapido has grown into a unicorn is simply outstanding. The ride-hailing sector has been dominated by the two major players, Ola and Uber, for some time now.
Amidst Ola and Uber's strong presence in the ride-hailing sector, we still saw the emergence of many companies like inDrive, Mega Cabs, BluSmart, Namma Yatri, Red Taxi, and Snap E Cabs. While some succeeded, most couldn't even stand properly due to so much intense competition in this particular sector. This is the reason why Rapido deserves a huge round of applause for the way they've emerged as a possible competitor to Ola and Uber.
According to a report in the Economic Times, Rapido secured a massive figure of 200 million USD in a funding round that was led by their long-term investor, WestBridge Capital. The investment took Rapido's valuation to the mark of 1.1 billion USD. The company's CEO, Aravind Sanka, talked about Rapido's newly launched four-wheeler taxi service and admitted that huge funds will be used to strengthen it. After dominating the three-wheeler services, industry experts are backing Rapido to pose a serious threat to the dominance of Ola and Uber in the market in the coming future.
Rapido is the fourth Indian company to become a unicorn in 2024 after Perfios (fintech startup), Krutrim (India's first AI unicorn), and Porter (transportation company). Returning to Rapido's incredible success, it operates in 100 cities across India. Not only this, Rapido has also generated more than 5 lakh jobs and is used by more than 10 million users. Two men established Ola (Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati) and Uber (Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp), respectively. However, in Rapido's story, three youngsters, Pavan Guntupalli, Rishikesh SR, and Aravind Sanka, joined hands and founded it.
Talking about Rapido's success story, three individuals came together and founded it in 2015. While Aravind Sanka and Pavan Guntupalli studied at IIT Bhubaneshwar and IIT Kharagpur, respectively, Rishikesh SR is an alumni of People's Education Society University (PESU). All three youngsters are from an engineering background, and before establishing Rapido, they worked with different companies.
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Aravind Sanka interned at Tata Motors and worked as a finance business partner at Flipkart for some time. Pavav Guntupalli worked with Samsung and other companies, where his job responsibilities were related to software development. Just like his friends, Rishikesh SR also worked with some companies and eventually founded IMPStant, a wallet-based service, but he couldn't succeed in taking it to the next level.
There came a point in the lives of Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and Rishikesh SR when they decided to build something. The trio built an intra-city aggregator for mini transport trucks for logistics. It was in November 2014 when they launched it by the name 'theKarrier' in Bengaluru. The venture became a hit and so far theKarrier have served over 1000 customers around Bengaluru. While working with theKarrier in Bengaluru, the trio observed that while trucks, cars, and autos were standing in the traffic, two-wheelers were getting out of it quite easily.
It was when Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and Rishikesh SR decided to launch a ride-hailing service as a bike aggregator in the beginning. It was in 2015 when they launched Rapido in Bengaluru, and within months, the company registered an average ride of 30,000 per day. The startup caught the attention of Pavan Munjal, who is the chairman and managing director of Hero MotoCorp, and he invested a huge sum in Rapido.
For the uninitiated, before cracking a deal with Pavan Munjal, Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and Rishikesh SR faced 75 rejections from investors. Most of the investors were quite skeptical about their startup as Ola and Uber have already dominated the entire sector. However, Pavan Munjal's trust in the youngsters paid off, as Rapido is now another unicorn in India's ride-hailing service sector. Now that they have adequate funds, it will be interesting to see where Rapido goes from here.
What are your thoughts on Rapido becoming a unicorn and being considered as a serious challenger to Ola and Uber? Let us know.
Also Read: Bhavish Aggarwal: How He Founded Ola Cabs, Borrowed Money From Wife, Love Story, Net Worth, More
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