Some of the most exciting opportunities are often hidden in plain sight, and it only takes one fresh perspective to unravel them. That’s what Pavan Guntupalli, Rishikesh SR, and Aravind Sanka saw first hand when Rapido started out betting big on bike taxis.
Taking inspiration from Uber’s original ride-hailing model, Rapido began as a bike-taxi aggregator in 2015, looking to solve the problem of last-mile connectivity and short commutes. Seeing that Ola and Uber had some issues filling this gap, Rapido made a bold bet.
It gave daily commuters a faster way to beat traffic economically and helped private bike owners earn an extra buck. What began then has snowballed into worthy competition for Ola and Uber.
Cut to 2025, Rapido is not only on par with Ola and Uber in terms of revenue streams, but also the market leader, according to cofounder and CEO Sanka.
“At a country level, today we are market leaders in bike taxis with 70% market share, we are market leaders in auto rides with close to 40% share, and second in cab-hailing or taxi market with 22% share. When you combine all three, we are market leaders,” Rapido’s Sanka claimed in a recent conversation with Inc42
How exactly did Rapido crack this in 10 years, when Ola and others such as BluSmart have either fallen behind or have completely disintegrated? As the Bengaluru-based unicorn turns 10 in 2025, it’s time to look at the journey from INR 6 Lakh in revenue in the first year to INR 1,000 Cr in FY25, as Sanka revealed.
Catching Up With Rapido At 10
While many have tried to replicate their model over the years, not many have been able to break the Ola-Uber duopoly, despite there being several opportunities due to unhappy drivers, customers and an uncertain regulatory environment amid safety-related incidents.
Before Rapido, the three founders launched a logistics startup Karrier, which eventually had to shut shop as most startups do at an early stage.
But the experience taught the trio to see the Indian ride-hailing market from a fresh perspective. The idea of taking on Ola and Uber, both huge companies by then, was daunting.
Plus, bike taxi apps were springing up everywhere including Delhi NCR-based Now and Bikxie and Bengaluru-based Pilot, Mu Ride and Streetryderr. These new ventures was not deterred by lack of clarity on bike taxi regulations.
“Being in a price-sensitive market like India, bikes were the best new option to not only serve a large group of daily commuters in cities but also take on giants like Ola,” Sanka recalled.
The validation for this idea came later when Ola and Uber both forayed into the bike taxi segment in 2016, starting with Bengaluru. This was just a few months after Rapido’s launch.
The Age Of Expansion
In the first three years, Rapido’s bike taxi service was restricted to Bengaluru, Gurugram, and Mysuru. But when the startup decided to expand, it went into overdrive. It launched services in 60 cities in 2018, Sanka said.
External funding was a big boost. The company first raised an undisclosed amount of funding in 2016 from Hero MotoCorp’s Pawan Munjal, AdvantEdge, Astarc Ventures, People Group’s Anupam Mitta, among others. It raised $10 Mn towards the end of 2018, which helped the company in its first major expansion across a few tier II cities.
The next significant boost came when Rapido raised $55 Mn led by WestBridge Capital in 2019, which helped it cover the lucrative Delhi market and other major cities.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, like most other ride-hailing business, Rapido forayed into hyperlocal deliveries and essentials supply to survive.
But there was another bold addition at this time. Even as ride-hailing all over the world was going through a slowdown, Rapido launched a new service, allowing auto-rickshaw ride. That proved to be a worthy gamble, especially as Ola and Uber were caught on the backfoot at this time.
Sanka says this allowed Rapido to build a big network within the auto-rickshaw market quickly. “Our motto is simple — We see problems as an opportunity to double down. When we needed to be aggressive, we were, and when we needed to take a step back, we did,” the cofounder said.
Building The Revenue Momentum
Right before the Covid-19 pandemic, the startup’s operating revenue surpassed the INR 90 Cr mark in FY20. However, losses also widened to INR 243.6 Cr in FY20 from INR 53.3 Cr in FY19. By this time, Rapido’s customer base had crossed the 15 Mn mark with 1.5 Mn+ registered captains.
As expected, the pandemic wreaked havoc, with many businesses coming to a standstill. Rapido was no exception. Even though it tried to stay ahead of the curve to beat the pandemic blues, its top line shrank to INR 72 Cr in FY21 with a net loss of INR 166 Cr.
The company clocked INR 144.8 Cr in revenue in FY22, although losses kept mounting on the books.
In FY24, Rapido’s operating revenue jumped 1.5X year-on-year (YoY) to INR 648.1 Cr. The startup also managed to narrow its losses by 45% YoY to INR 371 Cr last year from INR 675 Cr in FY23.
According to Sanka, the startup has nearly doubled its top line in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, which is expected to translate to a little over INR 1,000 Cr in revenue.
Rapido is confident of turning fully profitable in FY26. It also projects to grow 70% every year in the next two to three fiscal years from here on.
How The Market Was Won
Rapido today boasts 20 Mn transacting users and 2 Mn transacting bike taxi partners every month, according to Sanka. The final piece of the ride-hailing puzzle is the cab service, which Rapido launched in December 2023. Last year, the company entered the unicorn club by raising $120 Mn from WestBridge Capital, and has leveraged this to add more users and drivers.
As per data on Similarweb, Rapido’s driver and user apps have higher monthly downloads than Ola and Uber as of March 2025. In March, Rapido’s driver app averaged over 720K downloads per month, while Ola and Uber’s driver apps in India each saw less than 500K monthly downloads.
Similarly, Rapido Captain app’s average monthly downloads crossed 820K, while its user app downloads stood at 7.3 Mn in March.
Rapido epitomises the slow-and-steady approach and unlike Uber or Ola, it did not have a lot of distractions. Uber’s focus in the post-pandemic era had turned to its IPO in the US, and then to profitability, which led to some compromise on growth and a focus on diversification.
As we have covered in the past, Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal’s bigger focus on Ola Electric had led to some cuts and slowdown for the ride-hailing business. And in order to boost revenue, Ola Consumer ended up adding new verticals too quickly, which led to lopsided spending.
Ola Consumer (then Ola Cabs) had already captured more than 50% of the market share within seven years of its operations in 2017. It had 125 Mn registered users and 1 Mn+ driver partners by 2017, and consolidated revenue of INR 1,380.7 Cr, which jumped to INR 2,222.6 Cr in FY18. However, the company’s losses were almost double this.
Today, when Rapido is expected to cross INR 1,000 Cr in revenue, Ola and Uber are already clocking around 2-4X of the same, but are still loss-making.
But, Rapido’s strength lies in its growing market share and an asset-light model.
Just like any other ride-hailing venture, the company earns its revenue from drivers or riders. Earlier, it used to charge a 15-30% commission per ride, just like Ola and Uber. However, in February last year, it reduced the burden of high commissions that drivers had to pay, attracting more “captains” to the platform.
While Rapido’s bikers in some cities are still transitioning from a commission-based model to the new subscription model, all its autos and cabs run on the new model.
Rapido’s bike and auto “captains” pay around INR 20 to INR 30 to use its platform for a day. Similarly, cab drivers pay a platform fee of INR 40 per day or INR 500 per month.
Also, Rapido doesn’t own or lease vehicles. This has not only helped the company keep its business asset-light but also survive in a market otherwise dominated by big sharks.
Speaking with Inc42, mobility-focussed VC firm AdvantEdge’s Kunal Khattar said Rapido’s team has proven that capital can never be the biggest competitive moat in a country like India — it’s about building businesses frugally.
“When Rapido was raising INR 5 Cr, Ola was raising hundreds of millions of dollars. So, the team has proven its about building businesses in a very patient way. They were focussed and not chasing scale without a proper product or platform. I think that discipline has proven it’s not about capital. In fact, being under-capitalised sometimes is better than being over-capitalised,” Khattar, who has invested in Rapido, told Inc42.
AdvantEdge’s first INR 2.3 Cr cheque to Rapido was invested at an INR 14 Cr pre-money valuation in 2019, and has already given a 50X return so far, Khattar added.
Drifting Through Regulatory Roadblocks
Bike taxis have long been a bone of contention in several states. This is primarily because under India’s Motor Vehicles Act, private vehicles cannot be operated as commercial vehicles.
As India does not have a provision for bikes to be used as taxis, different state governments handle these companies differently, with some states and cities even introducing temporary bans.
From Telangana’s gig workers’ union to various auto unions and state governments like Delhi and Karnataka, many have raised objections, sometimes calling for outright bans on bike taxi services.
This hither and thither has been going on for a long time in various parts of the country, including Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi. Many bike-taxi businesses have been negatively impacted due to ambiguity among various state governments.
Rapido, Ola, and Uber got a much-needed breather when the central government issued an advisory early last year recognising motorcycles as contract carriages under Section 2(7) of the Motor Vehicles Act. However, despite this clarification, there are still legal grey areas and state-level challenges continue.
Another major issue Rapido faces is rider and passenger safety, especially for women. There have been multiple reports of sexual harassment by Rapido riders, which has raised serious concerns.
In response to these incidents, Rapido launched a safety initiative where users receive a follow-up call after evening rides to check if the journey was safe. The company also claims that during evening hours, its algorithm is designed to make rides safer for women passengers by tagging them with experienced riders with high ratings.
“We take safety very seriously at the management level. Every month, we track and review the number of incidents. We’ve implemented several measures, including pre-ride document checks, background verification, and real-time speed monitoring. If riders cross a set speed limit, they receive a warning. Repeat offences lead to deactivation from the platform,” said Sanka.
He added that the company launched insurance for both riders and users even before it became a government mandate. This was in anticipation that two-wheelers are often less safe than autos or cabs.
Coming Up: Rapido Food Delivery
Committed, the company has embraced food delivery to directly lock horns with Swiggy and Zomato. Until its recent full-fledged foray, Rapido was delivering food for Swiggy and ONDC as a B2B partner.
While these are early days, Rapido is expected to bank on zero commission model for growth and look at other ways of earning revenue in the food delivery game, as per reports. It is also in the process of setting up a fintech subsidiary, which could play a role in both food delivery and ride hailing.
The revenue diversification is a necessary step as the startup is eyeing an IPO within the next two to three years, and needs to push itself to show profitable growth before that comes around.
In terms of ride-hailing, Rapido has seen a gap in its airport cab services business, where it will need to expand beyond metros and to new cities. Expanding the overall ride-hailing presence to 500 cities is another major target, but as Sanka told us, this exercise is going to be cost-intensive, especially to establish supply.
Besides this, linking public transport points or innovating to improve public transport is a big goal for Sanka and the team. The cofounder says public transit in tier 1 cities is fraught with challenges in first and last mile connectivity.
“We are building solutions on how to make our services more effective and integrated for central transportation,” Rapido’s Sanka added.
The company has already launched metro ticketing in Delhi, Chennai, and Hyderabad, where users can mention their booked metro ticket, and a ride would be available to them sooner than usual
While these initiatives could push up costs, they will also help the company diversify its revenue stream. The question is to what extent, and how far does it take Rapido from its slow-and-steady approach thus far, which has been a key success factor in the first ten years of its journey.
The next ten years and beyond might be defined by something altogether different. Going beyond the INR 1,000 Cr mark and scaling up might mean taking on more differentiated bets. How far will that take Rapido from its core mission?
[Edited By Shishir Parasher]
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