Bus aggregator Shuttl secures $11 Mn Series B round from Amazon, others

Shuttl, an app-based on-demand shuttle (bus) service has raised $11 million in its Series B funding round led by Amazon India, Amazon Alexa Fund and Dentsu Ventures.

The Gurugram-based bus aggregator also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Times Internet and Lightspeed Ventures in the current round.

The Series B round comes after a long gap of 2 years and 7 months for the company. In December 2015, it had raised $20 million in Series A funding from Lightspeed, Sequoia India & Times Internet Ltd.

With the fresh funding, Shuttl will move into two new cities by the end of 2018-19 and grow in existing cities including Delhi NCR and Jaipur. The company has already started pilots in Pune and Kolkata. Besides, a part of the risk capital will be used for product development and marketing.

The fresh funding from Amazon India and Amazon Alexa Fund also opens the door for a future synergy between Shuttl and Amazon products such as Alexa and Prime videos. The partnership expected to bring the virtual assistant, Alexa on Shuttle platform in tune with the demands of Indian customers.

According to the company’s founder Amit Singh, prime videos in Shuttl buses with some offers or tie-ups with Amazon’s prime consumers in future is also expected.

Founded in April 2015 by Singh and Deepanshu Malviya, Shuttl started off an inter-city bus service, but three months later pivoted into intracity transport. It claims to have 800 buses with 45,000 daily rides in five cities and it has about 60,000 monthly active users.

As of now, pool service via bus has been offered by many startups including  ZipGo and Shuttl for daily office commute. Ola also tried to explore the verticle but following a tepid demand, it had shut its shuttle operations in February this year.

Last year, Shuttl too had faced hurdles as the transport department of Delhi government impounded over 50 Shuttl buses for permit violations. Besides, the department also threatened the two co-founders of the company for ‘illegally’ plying buses in the national capital.

The development was reported by Mint.