IntrCity By RailYatri Bags Series B From Samsung Ventures, Omidyar and Blume

Mobile-based train booking app IntrCity by RailYatri, on February 17, raised INR 14.03 Cr from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation as a part of Series B funding round.

According to the regulatory filings accessed by Inc42, Samsung Venture Investment has been allotted 29,725 Series BB compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS) for INR 4,710 per share, totalling up to INR 14.03 Cr.

Besides this, RailYatri also raised INR 65.58 Cr funding from Entrust Family Office, Omidyar Network and Blume Ventures Services in January this year, which was also a part of the Series B round. This takes RailYatri’s funding for this year to INR 79.61 Cr.

Manish Rathi, CEO and cofounder, IntrCity RailYatri said, “We could create India’s leading multi-modal inter-city mobility network due to our deep understanding of how Bharat travels, gained due to focused execution of last four years. We have been expanding exponentially and now positioned ourselves quite firmly in the inter-city mobility segment with our brand, IntrCity.”

As per the regulatory filing is January 8 accessed by Inc42, Entrust Family Office bought 91,526 Series BB CCPS for INR 43.20 Cr. ON Mauritius (Omidyar Network) bought 24,549 for INR 11.58 Cr, whereas Milestone Trusteeship Services (Blume Ventures) bought 22,882 shares worth INR 10.80 Cr. The development was first reported by Entrackr.

The company plans to use this funding to expand RailYatri’s IntrCity smart bus network form 84 buses to 300 buses and enhance its tech abilities. IntrCity By RailYatri plans to manage a fleet of 2000 buses by 2022. Currently, the buses operate in over 65 destinations, serving over 4 Lakh travelers per month. The buses are equipped with WiFi, automatic passenger information systems and on-board infotainment.

Prior to this, RailYatri has also raised $10 Mn in Series B funding round led by Omidyar Network. Infosys cofounder and former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani, Blume Ventures and Helion Venture Partners had also participated in the round.

Founded in 2014 by Manish Rathi, Kapil Raizada and Sachin Saxena, RailYatri is a crowdsourced platform for trains and travel-related services. The company offers comprehensive information on train status, reservation status, seat availability, amenities etc.

Previously, Nilekani had said, “RailYatri can bring in using smart combination of mobile, data, payments and analytics to the common man in India. Their prediction algorithms are already delivering time & money savings for the travellers.”

The platform relies on deep-analytics technology to make predictions to help travellers make decisions for their upcoming journeys. Besides that, it uses the traveller’s mobile GPS to predict train’s delay, provides information regarding the platform number, coach position, and on-time history of a train. Last year, the company launched its IntrCity smartbus for inter city travels as well.

RailYatri had acqui-hired Kochi-based food delivery technology startup, YatraChef, to offer onboard meals. Besides that, RailYatri also offers bus tickets, hotel rooms etc. Last year, the Delhi High Court had unauthorised RailYatri’s train ticket booking services. To continue its service, RailYatri applied for the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC)’s a license, which was then approved in July 2019.

The court has given a very well defined clarification that we need to work within the framework of IRCTC. So we have taken the very logical next step which is the application of the licence which is pending in its few processes,” Swapnil Tripathi, chief business officer of RailYatri told Inc42 in a previous interview.