The Bangalore-based online taxi aggregator, TaxiForSure has announced its most economical ride starting at just INR 49. Besides, it also claims to cross the 10 million rides milestone.
The firm is also looking at increasing its customer base by 10 times this financial year and growing it from 2 Mn to 20 Mn. Just recently, the company also dropped its rates/charges and removed all surcharge fee or peak time charge.
The company that began operations in Bangalore is now present in 52 cities across India and offers unique refer “ALL” program which allows you to introduce friends and family to the convenient service and earn money.
Commenting on the development, Arvind Singhal, CEO, TaxiForSure said, “This milestone is a testimony of the trust and acceptance by our customers, who are using our services to go to office, parties or their neighborhood market or even to drop their kids to the school. We will continue making travel convenient and TaxiForSure an integral part of the daily life of the 1 billion plus Indians.”
TaxiForSure is also introducing a new version of its mobile app that will let customers’ book cabs much faster than earlier. Currently, it is generating roughly 60,000 orders a day. Of this, about 65% were booked on the company’s mobile app.
Founded by IIM-Ahmedabad graduates Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G in June 2011, TaxiForSure currently has presence in 52 cities with 15,000+ vehicles registered on its platform.
Earlier in March this year, Ola had acquired TaxiForSure for $200 Mn in a cash and equity deal. So far, this is the biggest consolidation in the Indian tech-based cab booking space. However, just few weeks after the acquisition, Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna had left the startup and moved to the advisory roles. The two Co-founders now own 0.8% stake in Ola.
It seems that the shift in consumer habits towards convenience, on-demand services, and low prices have fuelled a boom in demand for taxi-hailing services. Recently, Ola raised over $400 Mn in a Series E round of funding led by DST Global with participation from GIC, Falcon Edge Capital and existing investors SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital and Accel Partners.