Growing agitation among the drivers of Ola and Uber has come as a blessing in disguise for auto rickshaw aggregator Jugnoo. The company is fast tracking its plans to expand business in other major cities. It is set to launch its business in Bengaluru by early April.
“To begin with, we will start our auto-rickshaw aggregation platform in Bengaluru in the next two months. Later this year, we will also start the cab aggregation platform across major cities, including Bengaluru,” Chinmay Agarwal, co-founder and COO, Jugnoo, told FE.
He said the company is currently in talks with driver partners for its expansion. A week ago, Jugnoo launched Jugnoo Cabs, its cab-hailing service on a pilot basis in Gurugram. It plans to roll it out in Delhi-NCR and Noida during the next quarter. The company also plans to launch the cab-hailing service in Mysuru and Coimbatore, where it is currently operating the auto-rickshaw aggregation business.
Currently, Jugnoo is present in 35 cities and seeing 40,000 daily transactions. With the entry into the cab-hailing business and expansion into Bengaluru, it is looking at a daily transaction level of 1,00,000 this year. It also plans to add another 20,000 auto-rickshaws to its network of 30,000 currently.
Jugnoo has priced its cab service with a base fare of R30 and R12 per km and R1 per minute as ride charges.
Ever since the drivers attached to Ola and Uber went on an indefinite strike in Delhi, Jugnoo has seen daily traffic doubling on its auto rickshaw platform. It has also seen good traction on its cab-hailing platform which is witnessing around 200 bookings everyday in Gurugram.
“We saw a gap in the taxi aggregation business. We analyzed the issues faced by taxi drivers off late and have come up with a strategy to provide taxi services at prices where drivers do not work at artificially lower rates than their costs. It’s a capitalist world where we have to manage expectations of both the customers and drivers together. At the moment, the existing players have not been able to balance this and therefore, we intend to fill in the gaps,” Agarwal said.
The company, which raised $10 million in Series B round in April 2016, is looking to raise fresh funds during the second half of this year.