GHV Backed MyTaxiIndia Gets $500K Pre-Series A Funding From Japan’s Biggest Taxi Company Nihon Kotsu

GHV Accelerator backed taxi rental startup, MyTaxiIndia (MTI), has bagged Pre Series-A round of $500K from Nihon Kotsu Co., Ltd. (Japan Taxi), a century old leading taxi company from Japan.

Co-founded by Anshuman Mihir, Mohit Rajpal and Satyakam Rahul in 2012, MyTaxiIndia (MTI) offers a complete taxi rental solution for city tours, outstation travel or holidays, both for B2B and B2C clients. The online platform serves as a one-stop-shop for customers to conveniently choose from the complete spectrum of chauffeur-driven transport services.

Within just 3 years of its launch, MTI claims to have the largest ISO 9001:2008 certified taxi network in India, with over 4000 taxis operating across 102 cities.

Gurgaon-based GHV had onboarded MyTaxiIndia for its Acceleration Program in June this year and had also infused $100K into the startup.

Anshuman Mihir, Co-founder of MTI, “We are lucky that the timing has been just right for us, with the Indian taxi market at its zenith we feel as if we made a few good choices in terms of GHV that we are getting validation for our model from a company like Japan Taxi. It gives me and the other co-founders tremendous confidence and helps us charge towards our goals with more zeal and responsibility.”

The company plans to use the fresh funds to scale up operations across other cities in India so it can get a bigger piece of the pie in the fast-growing Indian car rental market that currently is pegged at $9 Bn, of this, only 4-6 % is organized.

MyTaxiIndia has plans to expand its operations to 125 cities with one lakh active app users by March 2016.

“For a long time, Taxi and Limousine service has been just one of the options of transportation to many customers. What we’at aiming to do is to win the heart of more customers by upgrading their taxi journey to a memorable moment which is more than just a transportation. We would like to provide our superior ride experience with the spirit of “Omotenashi (Japan Hospitality)” to all over the world”, Ichiro Kawanabe, said.

As the head of the third generation family business of Nihon Kotsu (Japan Taxi), Ichiro has lead and promoted unique and innovative taxi services in Japan – special taxis for pregnant women, kids, the elderly, sightseeing etc. He is also accredited with the development of in-house taxi dispatch application.

Earlier, another GHV backed startup, LazyLad had raised $500K in its Pre-Series A round.

Vikram Upadhyaya, Chief Evangelist and Mentor at GHV, says, “Founders are highly mentorable and were incredibly great in doing fast track growth through controlled environment and were able to close their next round of funding from Nihon Kotsu in Just 2 months. They are technically graduates from GHV Accelerator in just 2 months. The Investment from NihonKotsu (Japan Taxi) brings strategic partnership where they can bring best industry practices too in Indian Taxi Industry.”

GHV plans to accelerate 25 startups over a period of three years with the intent of helping them grow into billion dollar enterprises.

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