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Public transportation provides a good deal of mobility, safety, and economic benefit to people and businesses. Beyond those key benefits, it also offers the most significant environmental advantages that contribute to a better quality of life. Public transportation reduces the number of cars in the street, and thus helps improve air quality, alleviate traffic congestion, and noise.
Shuttl is an app-based office bus service that provides buses for intra-city commute by allowing users to search and book AC bus-rides for travel.
Shuttl – Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Shuttl |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurugram, Haryana, India |
| Industry | Transportation |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Founders | Amit Singh and Deepanshu Malviya |
| CEO | Amit Singh |
| Area Served | India |
| Website | www.ride.shuttl.com |
Shuttl – About and How it Works?
Shuttl – Logo and its Meaning
Shuttle – Recent News
Shuttl – Founder and History
Shuttl – Mission
Shuttl – Business Model
Shuttl – Revenue and Growth
Shuttl – Funding and Investors
Shuttl – Awards and Recognition
Shuttl – Competitors
Shuttl – Challenges Faced
Shuttl – Future Plans
Shuttl – FAQs
Shuttl – About and How it Works?
Shuttl being India’s largest bus aggregator platform, provides office goers an easy and stress-free mode of travel to their workplace and back. Shuttl offers its services via their mobile application, which is available on both Google Play store and App Store. The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Gurgaon.
The company started operating first in Delhi-NCR. By now, Shuttl has extended its services to other cities of India such as Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai.
Shuttle provides reserved seats in AC buses, real-time bus tracking, affordable single day and monthly plans, guaranteed safety via advanced technology integrations, and robust identity checks of drivers and co-passengers.
“India isn’t as evolved a market where a passenger would feel safe in a stranger’s personal vehicle. That same person would be perfectly fine sitting next to a stranger in a public vehicle, like a bus. Commuting is the worst part of the day, and we wanted to come out with a solution to take the pain away from people of daily commuting and buses are the most efficient and cost-effective. Shuttl was the credible alternative to these people,” said the CEO.
You can explore bus routes between two locations and the app assists you in finding the best possible route to reach there. Once the booking process is done you need to browse your bus route on the Map. The application helps you navigate to your pickup point. The tech sourced app facilitates user to keep track of your Shuttl on the app to plan the journey. A user receives the vehicle’s details within 30 minutes before the scheduled boarding time. User can cancel or reschedule the booking before Shuttl reaches your pick-up point.
Therefore, Commuting with Shuttl reduces congestion, pollution, stress on city infrastructures (toll plaza, parking spaces), and gives back precious travel time that was lost earlier in driving/standing.
Shuttl – Logo and its Meaning
Shuttl’s company logo consisting of a bus in light blue colour, depicts how the company leverages on technology and focuses on comfort, and time-saving process of travelling through buses. All one has to do is install Shuttl app for easy commute.
Shuttle – Recent News
- Shuttl begins testing international market with Thailand
- Amidst dealing pandemic, Shuttl expands its ESOP pool
- Bus aggregator startup Shuttl raises INR 57 Crore from SIG Global India Fund
- Shuttl raises $8m from SIG Global and more updates
- Amazon backed Shuttl raises $36 Million from Toyota, others for expansion
Shuttl – Founder and History
The company was founded by Amit Singh and Deepanshu Malviya in 2015.
With buses, it was possible to offer a service at around one-eighth the price of a cab.
The Shuttl startup began intra-city bus fleet operations in 2015 within Delhi-NCR. The story of Shuttl dates back to 2014 when IIT-graduates Amit Singh and Deepanshu Malviya used to work for e-commerce company Jabong. They wanted to start their own venture, which led them to quit their jobs at Jabong. They started with a mobile content platform and later tried their hands at inter-city cab services. However, both these projects failed to take off. Nonetheless, neither Amit nor Deepanshu lost hope and kept looking for new opportunities.
When the founders noticed the huge challenges faced by commuters every day in Delhi-NCR and how people were usually forced to travel in crowded buses. The entire experience was quite stressful, they started with a pilot project wherein they hired two Toyota Innova cars and launched a basic app for the Shuttl service. With reserved seats, reliability and comfortable rides, the word soon spread and Shuttl started getting more requests from office goers. As of now, Shuttl operates hundreds of buses across various cities it serves.
Chayanika Goswami
Shuttl – Mission
With a mission of solving the pain of commute, Shuttl offers a space-efficient, safe, and cost-effective solution for urban India. Shuttl has demonstrated the ability to simultaneously address the dual challenge of congestion and pollution.
Shuttl – Business Model
Since the startup’s inception, the bus sharing commute offered more than 8 lakh rides and clocking about unimaginable rides a day. Apart from Delhi the company operates in the cities like Hyderabad, Kolkata, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida, and Pune and expanding to other cities as well.
The Shuttl business model is simple. They are an online aggregator and works with multiple service providers to sell their services under the Shuttl branding. The service providers in this case are Bus Operators with a valid licence to ply their buses on particular routes. Shuttl does not own any of the vehicles that are operated under its branding. It merely enters into service contracts (often at a fixed price) with bus service providers for the use of their vehicles under the Shuttl branding.
The responsibility to provide the actual transportation service lies with the bus service operators. It is also the operator’s responsibility to hire drivers and other crew necessary to ply the vehicles.
The fare that individual users pay to avail the shuttle bus services is collected and retained by Shuttl.
Shuttl – Revenue and Growth
App-based bus aggregator Shuttl surpassed INR 100 Crore in revenue in the financial year ended March 2019, clocking a 123% year-on-year growth compared with INR 44.8 Crore revenue reported in FY18, according to the company’s unaudited financial results released. Shuttl claims to have a rider ship of over 1 lakh rides per day across the six cities. Shuttl which raised over $50 million since its inception in 2015, currently has a network of over 350 shuttle routes operating 1,800 buses across different locations in India. Shuttl also claims to have completed over 33 million rides till date. Around 38% of Shuttl users are women.
“We attribute our sustained growth to our riders and uniquely designed services that we are offering them. Our endeavor is to deliver a safe, reliable and environmentally sustainable mobility for urban India, and by attaining one lakh daily ridership, we are confident that our constant efforts to enhance asset utilization, lowering transportation costs and improving rider convenience will help us transform the mobility landscape of cities in future,” Amit Singh, Co-chief executive of Shuttl said.
Ashwini
Shuttl – Funding and Investors
The Shuttl funding has raised a total of $122.3 Million in funding over 13 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Feb 18, 2020 from a Corporate Round round. Shuttl is funded by 22 investors. Sojitz and SIG Global India Fund are the most recent investors.
| Date | Round | Amount | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 18, 2020 | Corporate Round | $3M | Sojitz |
| Feb 14, 2020 | Series C | ₹570M | SIG Global India Fund |
| Dec 17, 2019 | Series C | $2.5M | Moving Capital |
| Nov 25, 2019 | Series C | $18M | SPARX Group, Toyota Tsusho |
| Oct 29, 2019 | Series C | $42M | SMBC Trust Bank, Toyota Tsusho |
| Apr 17, 2019 | Venture Round | ₹350M | NAV.VC |
| Mar 28, 2019 | Series B | ₹499.9M | Lightspeed India Partners, SCI investments, Sequoia Capital India, Times Internet |
| Jan 17, 2019 | Debt Financing | ₹100M | Trifecta Capital Advisors |
| Oct 23, 2018 | Debt Fiancing | $1M | Trifecta Capital Advisors |
| Jul 30, 2018 | Series B | $11M | Amazon, Amazon Alexa Fund, Dentsu Ventures |
Shuttl – Awards and Recognition
In June 2018, Shuttl was felicitated in the sustainable mobility category at the International Ashden Awards held in London.
In November 2017, in the FICCI Road Safety Awards, the firm had won the Special Jury Award in the category of Road Safety Product and Solution.
Shuttl – Competitors
ZipGo, WhistleDrive VProtect India, VAJOR.COM, EazyDiner, The Man Company Cityflo, and Commut are the leading contenders to Shuttl.
Shubham Kumar
Shuttl – Challenges Faced
Shuttl, an app-based on-demand shuttle service has suffered a loss of $8.21 million in fiscal year 2015-2016.
In a media interview, co-founder Amit Singh said the company plans to scale its fleet to at least 700 by the end of the ongoing financial year. It is also expected to hit a monthly sales run-rate of INR 10 Crore after that.
However, for Shuttl, the path to growth was not going easy as the company was facing various regulatory issues with state governments.
The transport department of Delhi government impounded over 50 Shuttl buses for permit violations. Besides, the department also threatened the two co-founders of Shuttl for ‘illegally’ plying buses in the national capital. In defence of the impounding, a senior official in the State Transport Ministry stated that these private buses are contract carriers and cannot act as stage carriers to pick up individual passengers as it leads to safety concerns, besides congestion and pollution.
Chayanika Goswami
Shuttl – Future Plans
India’s largest bus aggregator Shuttl has entered the highly contested food delivery space by launching meals on buses for daily commuters, as it looks to further monetize its captive customer base.
“Our customers are demanding food to be served on buses. The metric we track, ie Items sold per ride, show that about 90% of the people are buying something which validates that there is a consumer demand for it….we are working with cloud kitchens and building an ordering product to scale this offering,” Amit Singh, cofounder of Shuttl, said, adding that the service would target commuters who on average use the Shuttl service 22 times a month.
The company expects to break even at an operating level on the back of an increase in prices, bigger buses, and improved occupancy levels. Selling daily essentials on buses like bread, butter, curd, eggs and milk would be the next step for the startup, Singh said. The Shuttl startup also aims to expand their franchise in other cities of India.
Shuttl – FAQs
When was Shuttl founded?
Shuttl was founded in 2015.
Who is Shuttl’s CEO?
Shuttl’s CEO is Amit Singh.
Who are the Shuttl Founders?
The company was founded by Amit Singh and Deepanshu Malviya in 2015.
Who are Shuttl’s competitors?
Shuttl’s top competitors are ZipGo, Easy Commute, and Cityflo.
