• Google participated in Namma Yatri’s $11 million pre-Series A funding round co-led by Blume Ventures and Antler.
  • Namma Yatri’s commission-free model is eroding the market share of Uber and Ola, two well-known ride-hailing platforms.

OUR TAKE
Google, which has pledged to invest $10 billion in India, joined investors backing Moving tech by participating in the first $11 million of Namma Yatri’s Series A funding round, which marks the expansion of Namma Yatri’s car and taxi rental services to compete with peers like Ola and Uber.
–Elodie Qian, BTW reporter

What happened

Google participated in Namma Yatri‘s $11 million pre-Series A funding round co-led by Blume Ventures and Antler. Namma Yatri’s founders said the new funds will be used for the R&D team expanding, product innovation and customer experience improving.

Nandan Nilekani’s Beckn Foundation has launched the Namma Yatri app in Bengaluru in 2022 and is committed to creating a transparent, efficient and sustainable transport ecosystem that hopes to become the “UPI on the move”.

Namma Yatri has now joined the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) in Bengaluru City to offer three-wheeler auto rickshaw rides without any commission for both the driver and the passenger. The platform also offers taxi aggregation services in Kochi, Kolkata and Chennai.

Founded in 2021 and supported by the government’s Department of Commerce, the non-profit organisation ONDC aims to democratise commerce. The mobile app is open source, so various apps, including digital payment providers such as Paytm and PhonePe, can integrate with it.

Moving tech is the parent company of Namma Yatri, India’s open-source ride-sharing app. moving tech’s co-founder Shan M reflects on Uber and Ola’s decade-long monopoly in India, saying, “There was a lack of differentiated approach.” Moving tech operates without giving discounts to customers or extra incentives to drivers. moving tech has succeeded by offering services that people find genuinely useful.

Also read: Google to invest $350M in India’s Flipkart, valuing co at $37B

Also read: Who is Bhavish Aggarwal? The urban visionary behind Ola Cabs

Why it’s important

The platform’s launching comes at a time when users and drivers are dissatisfied with their unavailability of vehicles, unreliable services and high commissions charged. Namma Yatri’s commission-free model is eroding the market share of Uber and Ola, two well-known ride-hailing platforms.

The funding follows in the footsteps of the platform’s growth, signalling its expansion of car and taxi rental services to compete with peers like Ola and Uber. Notably, as the funding grows, Namma Yatri will likely become the first domestic ride hailing service in India to pilot car rentals. Namma Yatri’s founders said the company is also looking to expand its offerings to more types of transport, including buses.

While Namma Yatri is growing and expanding, several other similar rickshaw hailing apps have been launched across India, such as, a Bangalore-based transport federation in collaboration with Agnibhu Technologies has launched an auto rickshaw booking app “Nagara Metered Auto”. Competition in the Indian ride-hailing space has intensified and is centred on India’s homegrown ride-hailing services, which are expected to soar to a market size of $7.36 billion by 2028.