Pavan Guntupalli: On a Rapido ride

livemint.com:

₹1,000 crore) in its latest funding round led by existing investor WestBridge Capital, taking the valuation to $1 billion and making it one of India’s freshest unicorns. It recorded revenues of ₹497 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023, while its Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) grew to ₹2520 crore in the same period, a number that has increased 3X in the current fiscal year as per valuation reports. A few features set Rapido apart—it runs on a subscription model for its driver partners or “captains" instead of the more prevalent commission model, where the platform takes a commission on each ride.

The Rapido app offers customers the ability to offer a top-up fee while booking their ride, over and above the suggested price, to incentivise Rapido captains directly when demand outstrips supply. Then there are the small touches—I noticed, using Rapido frequently over the past month, that the one-time pin (OTP) to start the ride has remained constant across bookings, removing a small but not insignificant point of friction. “Ride-sharing as an idea wasn’t unique, it was happening globally when we got into it.

But we felt that the current solutions were not affordable. If you think of a middle-class person, someone who is commuting every day in a city like Bengaluru, using cabs or autos twice a day is not affordable. We thought a two-wheeler could be the solution, but there was uncertainty about whether people would accept two-wheelers as taxis," says the entrepreneur.