The daily commute to office has been a challenging affair in most of the top 10 cities in India. While Ola and Uber have solved the pain of accessing on-demand taxi or bike, still they are a costly affair when you have to cover a substantial distance to reach the workplace.
A couple of startups – Shuttl and ZipGo – started a few years ago to ease out the transportation needs for office goers. However, ZipGo didn’t survive because of Essel Group had backed out to put propose Rs 300 crore investment at the last moment.
Meanwhile, Shuttl kept growing and raising funds at regular intervals. After raising Rs 49.9 crore worth Series B round in March this year, the Gurugram-based firm has raised Rs 128.7 crore Series C round from Toyota Tsusho Corporation and SMBC Trust Bank as Trustee of Mirai Creation Fund-II.
Importantly, Shuttl’s valuation has touched Rs 1,328.5 crore in the Series C round. While the valuation of the company hasn’t spiked as several startups such as UrbanClap, Vogo and Bounce, Shuttl has recorded decent 20% increase in valuation in the fresh round.
According to RoC filings, Toyota Tsusho Corporation and SMBC Trust Bank as Trustee of Mirai Creation Fund-II together have put in Rs 128.70 crore worth investment via the purchase of 43,518 Series C CCPS (worth Rs 29,574/share).
Till date, Shuttl has raised a total of $90.8 million in funding. In April this year, it also raised money from BCCL’s owner – Vineet Jain and Mu Sigma co-founder – Ambiga Subramaniam.
The latest funding comes at a time when Shuttl has been aggressively expanding and look to maintain a lead in the segment. The round will give Shuttl greater leverage in the market with an abundance of funds to increase not just its fleet size, but also facilitating additional services of providing meals to the customers.
The bus aggregator has witnessed over 50% users shifting from cars to Shuttl buses as their primary mode for a daily commute. Till last month, Gurugram based firm claimed to have more than 100K ridership across 6 cities including Delhi-NCR, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai.
Shuttl boasts of serving to over 350 routes by operating 1,800 buses across locations. The bus aggregator has witnessed over 50% users shifting from cars to Shuttl buses as their primary mode for the daily commute.
Shuttl has certainly been an outlier in daily transportation space. It has shown the perseverance and kept growing on its own speed. The company is solving a very large and real problem. If it continues growing at the same pace, it would be unlocking significant wealth for all stakeholders in the long haul.
Meanwhile, the company is yet to file the annual financial report for FY19. We will analyse its financial performance in the fiscal ending March 2019 as and when it does.
