Rapido, a bike taxi platform, has raised $180 million (Rs 1,370 crore) in a Series D funding, led by Swiggy. TVS Motor Co. also participated in the round.
The startup, among the ‘soonicorns’, has raised $130 million (around Rs 1,000 crore) in the last seven years. The latest funding took its valuation to $830 million (Rs 6,330 crore).
“With both TVS and Swiggy, our relationship is beyond capital,” Aravind Sanka, co-founder at the Bengaluru-based company, told BloombergQuint. “Swiggy’s partnership will also provide additional earnings for both Swiggy’s delivery executives and Rapido’s captains. With TVS, we aim to bring together our strengths in mobility and seamless technology platform where our partnership will focus both on two-wheeler and three-wheeler vehicles in the EV segments and expand our electric bikes fleet.”
The capital, Sanka said, will be used across the three prime categories comprising bike taxi, auto and delivery.
The delivery or third-party logistics business, which Rapido forayed into three years ago, is “more of a matter of utilisation than anything else at this point”. “Since all our third-party logistics drivers have enrolled in bike taxis, it helps our bike taxi captains earn more income on a daily basis.”
Separately, insurtech startup Turtlemint has raised $120 million (Rs 916 crore) in a Series E funding.
The company has reached a “slightly less than unicorn valuation”, Co-Founder Dhirendra Mahyavanshi told Bloomberg.
According to India Insurtech Association and Boston Consulting Group, insurtech funding in the country propelled from around $290 million (Rs 2,210 crore) in 2020 to $900 million (Rs 6,870 crore) in 2021.
“The funding levels of last year indicate sustained investor interest and we will see more insurtechs creating real business value. Enablers such as IndiaStack, Ayushman Bharat, Insurance Information Bureau and the RBI’s regulatory sandbox have provided a strong platform for innovation across the insurance value chain,” it said in a report.
India has churned out three unicorns in this segment—Acko, Digit Insurance and PolicyBazaar.
