Transportation is one of the oldest businesses in the world, and it can never go extinct because as long as the world continues, people will always need to move around from place to place. The transport business is also one business in which you can make cool cash. If you are looking to start a transportation business, you have come to the right place. The transportation industry is vast and offers a wide range of opportunities for entrepreneurs who are willing to put in the work to build a successful business.
Large transportation companies enjoy economies of scale when it comes to purchasing power and the ability to provide a broader range of services. However, small transportation businesses can compete better in local and regional areas by offering personalized services that larger companies may not be able to provide. The industry is largely fragmented, with 40% of revenue generated by the 50 largest firms. This means that there is a significant opportunity for small and mid-sized transportation businesses to carve out a niche in the market and compete effectively against larger players.
In this blog, we will explore some of the most profitable transportation business ideas, including car hire, trucking, bus transport, shipping service, air cargo, and more. We will also provide tips on how to start a transportation business so you can be on your way to building a successful venture in this exciting industry. So, whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, let’s dive in and explore some of the best, most profitable transportation business ideas that can help you achieve financial success.
How to Start a Transportation Business?
Starting a transportation business requires careful planning and research to ensure that you have a solid foundation for success. Here are some general steps to follow when starting a transportation business:
Develop a Business Plan: Start by creating a business plan that outlines your transportation business idea, target market, competition, financial projections, and marketing strategy. This will help you organize your thoughts and ensure that you have a clear understanding of your business goals.
Choose a Legal Structure: Determine the legal structure of your business, such as a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or corporation. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks, so it’s important to research and choose the structure that best suits your needs.
Register Your Business: Register your business with the appropriate government agencies, obtain any necessary licenses and permits, and comply with all applicable regulations and laws.
Acquire Vehicles: Depending on the type of transportation business you want to start, you may need to acquire vehicles. This could involve purchasing or leasing vehicles or even partnering with other transportation providers to create a fleet.
Hire Staff: Determine the number and type of employees you need to operate your business, such as drivers, dispatchers, and administrative staff. Develop a recruitment strategy and create job descriptions to attract the right candidates.
Set Prices: Determine the pricing structure for your transportation services based on your costs, competition, and market demand. Be sure to factor in all costs associated with operating your business, such as fuel, maintenance, insurance, and wages.
Develop a Marketing Plan: Create a marketing plan to promote your transportation services to potential customers. This may involve traditional advertising methods, such as print or radio ads, as well as online marketing strategies, such as social media and search engine optimization.
Starting a transportation business can be a challenging endeavor, but with the right planning and execution, it can be a profitable and rewarding venture. It’s important to conduct thorough research, seek advice from industry experts, and be prepared to adapt to changes in the market.
Most Profitable Transport Business Ideas
The following are some of the most profitable transport business ideas in Indiathat can prove to be successful and lucrative:
One of the most profitable transportation business ideas is a towing business, as you can start with just one towing truck. Your job will be to help move broken-down or illegally parked vehicles to a designated place.
To open a transportation company, you need to obtain a license or operate an automotive towing business, which can be a frustrating task since auto-towing licenses are heavily regulated.
Some operators of towing companies forego the license entirely and don’t provide towing services to the general public; instead, they only subcontract their services exclusively to car dealers and property managers. The alternative to waiting to be awarded a towing license is to purchase one from an existing towing operator or company.
Car Towing Service Market Size (2021-2030)
2. Taxi Cab Business
Best Transport Business Ideas – Taxi Cab Business
The cab business is preferred by those who want to have a chauffeur drive them. While taxi cabs are known to pick up customers from the road, private hire taxi cars serve customers who make a prior booking. One of the most profitable driving business ideas is that of a driver who can use their vehicle, so startup costs are relatively low.
Depending on the brand and condition of the car (new or second-hand), a suitable vehicle for a taxi or cab business can cost between INR 10,000 and INR 45,000. The cab business is the most successful transport business idea because taxi cabs are often regulated in most cities; they must be registered with the relevant city council authorities. This is why Uber and Ola have become successful unicorn companies.
3. Trucking
Transport Business Ideas – Truck Business
The truck transport business is another profitable business idea in India, as large chunks of imported goods need to be transported to several towns and cities until they reach the small retailers and final consumers. Trucking and haulage are the vital links that connect imported, manufactured, and cultivated goods to final consumers like us. Lorry businesses, like hiring heavy-duty trucks and tankers, may be at a standstill. Truck transport business ideas play a crucial role in facilitating the smooth flow of goods and ensuring commerce continuity, and can help you earn a good profit. Trucking can be one of the most profitable truck business ideas.
4. Car Rental
Transport Business Ideas – Car Rental
The car rental transport business is a lucrative career option that is similar to cab business ideas. It can be especially profitable when located in strategic locations such as busy cities with large populations, commercial centers, and entertainment districts. However, unlike the cab business, car rental companies have stricter safety standards that they must adhere to before they can provide vehicles for hire.
If you are considering starting a car rental business, your first step should be to purchase vehicles that meet these safety standards and also have features that can help reduce their impact on the environment. This is especially important since many modern consumers prioritize sustainability and eco-friendliness when making purchasing decisions.
Car rental services are also popular amongst tourists and people visiting a new location for a short period of time. By offering quality vehicles at competitive prices, you can attract a broad range of customers and establish a loyal customer base, making it an ideal venture for a transport business startup.
To succeed in the car rental business, it is essential to have excellent customer service, maintain your vehicles regularly, and stay up to date with changing market trends. By staying ahead of the curve and offering innovative services, you can build a profitable and sustainable transport business that meets the needs of your customers.
Best Transport Business in India – ZoomCar Business Model
5. Bus Transport Services
ITransport Business Ideas – Bus Transport Services
For many travelers, air travel is not always a feasible option due to cost or other factors. As a result, ground travel via buses or trains remains a popular alternative. If you are interested in starting a bus transportation business, it can be a lucrative opportunity to explore.
To start a bus transportation business and explore the bus business ideas, you will need to purchase a vehicle that can accommodate your target market’s needs. Once you have your vehicle, you can hire a driver or learn to drive it yourself if you have the required license and expertise.
Another option is to affiliate with an established transportation company, which can provide you with access to a larger customer base and an existing network of support services. This can be especially useful for those who are just starting out and may not have the resources to invest in their own infrastructure.
Regardless of the approach you choose, customer service is crucial to success in the transportation business.
With the increasing demand for shipping services that offer reasonable prices and promise convenience, speed, and reliability, no other time could be better than now for taking a plunge into the shipping business. The shipping industry is growing and rapidly changing, thanks to the increasing dependence on online shopping. The shipping business ideas are highly capital-intensive and competitive. However, it is one of the most profitable businesses in the transportation sector.
7. Driving School Service
Transport Business Ideas – Driving School Service
If you are very good behind the wheel, you can start a driving school and teach people how to drive. Every year, anxious teens who have attained the driving age requirements and even adults who don’t know how to drive approach driving schools to learn how to drive.
If you are looking for a steady source of income in the automotive industry, driving school is a lucrative business where you can teach people how to drive.
It is important to state that before starting a driving school, you will be required to obtain the required license, permits, and approval from the appropriate authority in your country. But apart from the little stress involved in securing approval, a permit, and a license for a driving school, it could be fun teaching people how to drive, especially if driving is one of your hobbies. By providing top-notch instruction and exceptional customer service, you can establish a reputable driving school that attracts a steady stream of customers and generates a healthy profit.
8. Limousine Services
Transport Business Ideas – Limousine Business
Limousine is a profitable transport idea; you could provide limo service to celebrities or regular people. Whenever anyone entrusts you to drive them, a clean reputation is important. But in the case of the personal limo service, typically you’ll be driving a group of people who aren’t paying attention to where you’re going or how you’re driving but are enjoying the ride.
In order to start a limousine transport company, the driver needs to be supremely trustworthy, and the vehicle needs to be safe and well-maintained. For this, you can provide all the services yourself, from scheduling to driving. If you want to expand, just add vehicles and drivers and keep expanding your marketing to keep business flowing.
Boats are more than a source of transportation or a fishing aid. They are now used as a recreational facility. It is not uncommon to see people take boat trips during the holidays. Some people even hold events onboard boats.
If you have sufficient funds, you can have a boat made for you or buy one that you can start renting to people. For businesses like boat charters, a transportation business license is a must.
10. Air Cargo Business
Transport Business Ideas – Air Cargo Business
The sea is not the only means through which cargo can be brought in; starting a transportation business like air cargo is also profitable as the air can also be utilized in transporting containers. In 2014, airlines transported 51.3 million metric tons of goods, representing more than 35% of global trade by value but less than 1% of world trade by volume.
With the right tools and equipment, even though very costly, you can start an air cargo transport business by helping businessmen transport their goods faster and in a safer way.
Worldwide Revenue of Cargo Airlines (FY2008 – FY2022)
11. Livestock Transportation
Transport Business Ideas – Livestock Transportation
Livestock is a key part of many industries and plays an important role in their supply chains. However, transporting livestock is more challenging than moving other types of goods, requiring specialized transport services. This need creates opportunities for new entrepreneurs in the transport business.
Transporting livestock can be one of the best business ideas for small-scale investors in India. The agricultural sector frequently needs to move poultry, cattle, and pigs. Not only is it important to transport livestock safely, but by doing so, you can also meet the essential needs of farmers and tap into a high-demand market. Overall, livestock transportation is a highly promising transport business idea in India.
Best Transport Business Ideas – Healthcare Transportation
Healthcare transportation includes ambulances for emergencies and help for road accident victims. With more older people starting a medical transportation business can be a good idea. This service helps seniors, people with disabilities, and patients get to medical appointments.
To start, you’ll need wheelchair-accessible vehicles, trained drivers, proper certifications, and marketing to healthcare providers and community groups. Profit depends on your rates, the number of clients, insurance payments, and how well you run the business. Medical transportation services can make a profit of 10 to 20%.
13. Moving Company
Many entrepreneurs are exploring logistics business ideas due to the rising eCommerce and supply chain needs. You can start a moving business with just one truck and a few strong team members. Advanced logistics technology isn’t necessary, but experience in handling household and office items is essential.
Moving companies help relocate belongings, offering services like packing, shipping, and transporting household items. They handle both local and long-distance moves.
Charges are usually based on hourly rates or the specific job, so pricing must be planned carefully. Starting also requires investing in essential moving equipment, such as trucks and dollies.
14. Delivery Service
With the rise of e-commerce, last-mile delivery services are in high demand. You can work directly with local businesses or join platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. A clean driving record, a smartphone, and regular vehicle maintenance are essential. This role suits punctual drivers who enjoy problem-solving but require managing fuel costs and demand fluctuations.
15. Airport Shuttle Business
Transport Business Ideas – Airport Shuttle Business
Airport shuttle services are a great business idea in tourist cities, helping people travel to and from airports. Use spacious vehicles, partner with hotels and travel agencies for bookings, and focus on being punctual and affordable to attract customers. Airport shuttle services can be one of the best bus business ideas.
Cycle rental shops are becoming more popular in cities and tourist places because people are now more aware of the environment and want to stay healthy. This business can do really well in areas where bicycle-sharing services are already available and where many tourists visit.
As more people prefer eco-friendly transport, bicycles are a good option instead of using cars. This attracts many customers. Starting this business doesn’t cost much, and it can give steady income, especially if it’s connected to mobile apps that make renting easy and allow regular payments instead of one-time charges.
Conclusion
The transportation industry is a lucrative and constantly evolving sector that offers numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs to start profitable businesses. Starting a transportation business requires careful planning, market research, and a significant investment of time and money. However, with the right approach, dedication, and hard work, individuals can establish successful transportation businesses that provide a valuable service to customers while generating a healthy profit.
Whether you are interested in starting a ride-sharing service or a driving school, the key to success in the transportation industry is to offer high-quality services, prioritize safety, and remain adaptable to changing industry trends and regulations. With these principles in mind, anyone can turn their transportation business idea into a thriving venture.
FAQs
How to start a transportation business?
To start transport business, you need to conduct market research, create a solid business plan, obtain necessary licenses and permits, secure funding, and invest in equipment and facilities. You should also prioritize safety and customer satisfaction and remain adaptable to changing industry trends and regulations to ensure the long-term success of your business.
Is transport business profitable in India?
Yes, the transportation business can be highly profitable, as it provides essential services to individuals, businesses, and governments. The industry is constantly evolving and presents many opportunities for entrepreneurs to establish successful businesses and generate significant profits.
What are the top transportation business ideas?
The top transportation business ideas are
Air Cargo Business
Boat Charters
Limousine Services
Driving School Services
Shipping Services
Bus Transport Services
Car Hire
Trucking
Taxi Cab Business
Towing Service
What are the other transport business ideas?
Some of the other transport business ideas are:
Interstate Commuting
Ferry Transport
Car Storage
Car Wash
Courier Services
Motorcycle Sales
Transport Blogging
Kids Taxi Service
Airport Shuttle Business
Medical Transportation
How much does it cost to start a transportation business?
The cost of starting a transportation business can vary significantly depending on the type of business and the location. However, entrepreneurs should be prepared to invest in equipment, facilities, licenses and permits, and marketing expenses.
Is it difficult to obtain licenses and permits for a transportation business?
The process of obtaining licenses and permits for a transportation business can be complex and time-consuming, as different jurisdictions may have different regulations and requirements. However, entrepreneurs can consult with industry experts or government agencies to ensure that they meet all the necessary standards.
What is profit margin in transport business in India?
The profit margin of a transport business in India can vary depending on various factors, such as the type of business, the size of the fleet, the market demand, and the operating costs. However, on average, the profit margin in the transport industry in India ranges from 5% to 25%. It is important to note that profitability can also depend on effective management, cost control, and efficient operations.
What are small transport business ideas?
Airport Shuttle Services
Last-Mile Delivery
Moving Services
Car Rental
Food Delivery
Bike Courier
School Transportation
How to start a transportation business with one van?
To start a transportation business with one van, plan your service (like delivery, moving, or shuttle), obtain the necessary licenses and insurance, and ensure your van is in good condition. Market your services locally, set competitive pricing, and keep track of finances. Start small and focus on a specific service to build your business and reputation.
What are commercial vehicle business ideas?
Commercial vehicle business ideas include delivery services, moving companies, food trucks, shuttle services, parcel couriers, towing, waste collection, and construction hauling. These businesses can serve various needs, from local deliveries to transporting materials and providing roadside assistance.
What is transport business income in India?
Income from a transport business in India varies based on the service type. Delivery services can earn INR 30,000 to INR 80,000 monthly, while moving services may bring in INR 50,000 to INR 1,00,000. Ride-hailing drivers can make INR 25,000 to INR 60,000, and logistics companies can earn INR 1,00,000 to INR 5,00,000 per month, depending on demand and scale.
How to start a passenger transportation business?
To start a passenger transportation business, choose your service type (e.g., taxi, shuttle, or bus), get necessary licenses and permits, buy or lease vehicles, hire trained drivers, and get insurance. Set routes or on-demand options, and promote your service through online and local channels. Ensure safety, punctuality, and customer service for growth.
What is the bus business profit in India?
In India, the private bus business profit can range from INR 30,000 to INR 1.5 lakh per month per bus, depending on route, usage, fuel cost, and ticket pricing. Profits are higher on busy routes and with well-managed operations.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.
Ola needs no introduction. The first Indian cab aggregator company, Ola has made availing of cab services a smooth experience. Owned by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and formerly known as OlaCabs, Ola was launched in December 2010 by two IIT Bombay graduates. Being a pioneer among cab companies in India, Ola bridges the gap between cab owners and commuters, and it has done so really well!
Instead of buying and renting out its own cars, Ola partners with a number of taxi drivers and owners and adds a touch of modern technology to the whole setup. This allows people to book cabs at short notice through Ola’s app. Ola is India’s homegrown ride-hailing app with users in over 250 cities and employs 2.5 million+ driver-partners.
Driven by a hyperlocal approach, Ola is committed to its mission of building mobility for a billion people. Staying in line with its mission, Ola has also ventured into auto and bike booking services. Ola also started off a bicycle-sharing service called ‘Ola Pedal’ in 2017 to facilitate last-mile connectivity.
Read on to explore the remarkable story of Ola, its history, founders, owners, business model, revenue, growth, and more.
Ola has simplified the process of cab booking. From easy payment options to keeping the passengers entertained on the go with ‘Ola Play’, Ola takes care of everything to ensure a smooth ride. Ola now also operates self-drive cars. Be it self-drive or cab-hailing, Ola Cabs offer a wide range of cars to choose from depending on the number of travelers, budget, and convenience. For traveling within the city, one can hire shared taxis, autos, bikes, and even e-rickshaws through Ola.
One can opt for ‘Ola outstation’ to travel outside the city and ‘Ola rentals’ to rent a cab on an hourly basis. Ola has also launched ‘Ola Select’, a subscription-based membership program that offers premium benefits on rides. ‘Ola pedal’, Ola’s bicycle-sharing service, is already a big hit in the IIT Kanpur and the IIT Madras campuses with over 500 cycles.
In 2016, Ola launched ‘Ola Corporate’. When employees book their rides through Ola Corporate, the fare is deducted from the company’s Ola corporate prepaid account. Hence, companies can easily track the travel expenses of their employees while ensuring their safety.
Ola – Industry Details
India’s ride-hailing market was valued at $6.42 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $7.6 billion by 2028, with strong growth ahead. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.3% between 2022-2024. The increase is supposed to happen due to the changing lifestyles of travelers and the growing disposable incomes of consumers, especially in Tier-I and Tier-II cities.
Ola was founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2010.
Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati – Ola Founders
Bhavish Aggarwal
Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal graduated from IIT Bombay with a B.Tech in computer science in the year 2008. Ola Cabs owner Bhavish worked for Microsoft Research in Bangalore for two years right after college. He filed 2 patents and published 3 research publications in international journals during his stint at Microsoft. While chasing his entrepreneurial dream, he started an online company to sell short-duration tours and holidays before transforming it into Ola Cabs. Bhavish Aggarwal is the Co-founder and the CEO of Ola. Born on 28 August 1985, OLA owner Bhavish Aggarwal’s personal net worth was estimated to be around $350 Million, as per 2019 data. The wealth of Bhavish further increased to stand at Rs 7500 crore ($958.43 million) in September 2021,which also made him grab the 9th position among India’s wealthiest list under 40, which also features Sachin and Binny Bansal, Neha Narkhede, Nakul Aggarwal and Ritesh Arora, and led by Divyank Turakhia, with Rs 12,500 net worth.
The Ola chief Bhavish Aggarwal will reportedly be stepping down from the day-to-day operations of the core business of Ola and will be more involved with the new and upcoming businesses of the company. The Ola company’s day-to-day operations will be taken over by Arun GR, who joined in 2021 from Vedanta Resources and has previously headed as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Ola Electric and Ola Financial Services, as confirmed by an internal organizational mail. Bhavish confirmed that he would not be retiring but will move on to overseeing Ola team building, product building, engineering functions, two-wheelers, car projects, quick commerce verticals, international expansion, and more.
Bhavish Aggarwal is well known for his tweets and remains quite active on Twitter and other social media platforms. He once even remarked jestingly that his tweets receive more replies than even Modiji’s tweets.
In a recent tweet that came from Elon Musk, where the Tesla chief said, “Tesla will not put a manufacturing plant in any location where we are not allowed first to sell & service cars”, Bhavish Aggarwal sarcastically replied with “Thanks, but no thanks!” the very next day on May 28, 2022.
Bhavish Aggarwal, who has been known to remark on Tesla and its likely launch in India, had said again, according to the July 4th, 2022, that the EV manufacturing giant is free to put up a shop in India and sell its cars, but they are not doing that, further adding that Tesla only “want to be treated differently from others, which I believe is not in the interests of India”.
Ankit Bhati is the Co-founder and the CTO of Ola and heads the technical aspects of Ola Cabs, ensuring a quick, convenient, and instinctive experience for the customers and partners. He joined IIT Bombay in 2004 for a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering and an M.Tech in CAD and automation. By 2009, he had already worked on several freelance projects and with startups like Wilcom, QED42, etc. Ankit finally decided to give up his nomadic professional life for his own start-up. He became part of the Ola Cabs journey in November 2010. There were speculations that Ankit Bhati has left Ola but these were nothing but rumors and falsities, as said by Ola Co-founder Bhavish.
Ola Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Swayam Saurabh and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Gaurav Porwal left the company in the first week of October 2021. Arun Sirdeshmukh, who was the CEO of Ola Cars, resigned from the company within less than a year of his appointment.
The Ola work culture is dominated by the “Act fast, think later” philosophy, as mentioned by the top 10 senior employees of Ola who resigned from the firm.
Ola – Initial Team
OLA Initial Team
After the idea, the design and vision were done by the product manager, Usha Loutongbam, and Bhavish himself. As for the developers who converted these ideas into reality, the first version for Android was built by Ajinkya Potdar and for iOS by Khushal Bokadey. Both of them joined Ola for two months of internship and did an excellent job rolling out the release in real quick time.
The iOS app was then taken over by Atul Manwar and the Android version by Ankit Kumar. Neeti Birla developed thebackend APIs. The main focus of the new releases was to make the app feature-rich and improve the user experience without losing the essence of one-touch cab booking.
Ola – Startup Story | How was Ola Started?
Ola was launched on 3rd December 2010. There is an interesting story behind Ola’s start. Born in Ludhiana, Ola owner Bhavish Aggarwal was just like every other success-driven entrepreneur. Bhavish first started an online site named Olatrip.com that offered holiday packages and weekend trips.
While trying to keep his holiday and tour planning business afloat, Bhavish had to travel from Bangalore to Bandipur for which he rented out a car. The cab experience was horrendous! The driver stopped the car in the middle of the journey and demanded a re-negotiation of what Bhavish was paying. After being refused, the driver proceeded to abandon Bhavish en route to his destination.
This is when he realized how his plight was probably similar to a lot of customers across the country who were looking for quality cab services. Bhavish saw the potential of an extraordinary cab booking service, and he changed Olatrip.com’s business model to the one we know today as Ola Cabs.
Bhavish on-boarded his co-founder Ankit Bhati for taking Ola Cabs forward. Bhavish’s parents didn’t agree with his startup plans in the beginning. They were thoroughly displeased with his decision to become a ‘travel agent’. Nevertheless, his parents became supportive once OLA got its first round of angel investment from Snapdeal founder Kunal Bahl, Rehan Yar Khan, and Anupam Mittal.
Bhavish believes that anyone can have a good business idea but to implement it successfully, one must have a scalable model to power the business. According to him, the best or one of the safest models one can or should adopt is running a business while owning “zero” inventory.
If you believe that Ola is some sort of abbreviation or short form, you are wrong. The name is derived from the Spanish word ‘Hola’ that translates to ‘Hello’.
Ola – Business Model and Revenue Model
Ola has a simple business model. It acts as a facilitator to provide cab-booking services. Customers can book their cabs through the app. Ola does not own any of the cabs. Only those drivers with valid permits duly authorized and verified by transport authorities can sign up with Ola; they could be either self-employed or work for an operator who owns multiple cars.
Just like how we as customers use the Ola app, the drivers get access to a driver-specific mobile app on their smartphone once they register with Ola. This is done only after a thorough check of authenticity and conducting due diligence on the commercial papers and the personal papers of both the driver and the operator. The drivers have the flexibility to decide their own time to log in to the Ola application and accept requests for rides from customers. They may choose to remain logged out of the system at their convenience. Ola takes a commission of 15% on average on all the bookings done through the app.
Ola considers the following factors to create the final bill for the user:
Base Fare – Charged flat
Distance Fare – Charged kilometer-wise (different for different cities)
Ride Time Fare – Charged on the time taken to travel
Peak Pricing – Direct ratio depending on the demand for cabs
Service Tax – 5.6%
Swachh Bharat Tax – 0.2%
Toll Charges – Toll Collection in case you cross toll junctions in the journey
Ola has also got into 3 international markets namely Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. In Australia, it has set up operations in seven cities. It claims to have registered 40,000 drivers on its app in Australia. In India, Ola operates across 250+ cities.
Ola – Funding, Investors and Valuation
Ola’s funding history includes around $5 billion over 29 rounds.
The company’s valuation is $2 billion, as per the news report of November 2024.
Here is a breakup of the total funding raised by OLA to date:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors/Shareholders
February 22, 2022
Series J
$20.11 million
Arrow Capital, Axis Growth Avenues and more
December 16, 2021
TLB Round
$500 million
–
December 8, 2021
Series J
$139 million
Edelweiss and others
July 9, 2021
Pre-IPO Round
$500 million
Temasek, Warburg Pincus’s Plum Wood and Bhavish Aggarwal
September 2019
Series J
$5.1 Million
ARK Ola Pre IPO Private Investment Trust
July 2019
Series J
$11.4 Million
Deshe Holdings, DIG Investment
March 2019
Corporate Round
$300 Million
Hyundai Motor Co.& Kia Motors Corp
February 2019
Series J
$92 Million
Sachin Bansal
February 2019
Series J
$14 Million
–
January 2019
Series J
$88 Million
Steadview Capital
January 2019
Corporate Round
$1.8 Million
Eternal Yield International
September 2018
Series I
$50 Million
China Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund, Sailing Capital
August 2018
Secondary Market
$225 Million
Temasek Holdings
October 2017
Series G
$1.1 Billion
Tencents Holdings and SoftBank Group
August 2017
Private Equity
$36 Million
Tekne Capital
May 2017
Private Equity
$104 Million
RNT Capital Advisors and Falcon Edge Capital
April 2017
Series G
$260 Million
SoftBank Capital
February 2017
–
$330 Million
SoftBank
November 2015
Series F
$500 Million
Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and DST Global
April 2015
Series E
$403 Million
DST Global, GIC, Softbank and Falcon Edge Capital
October 2014
Series D
$210 Million
SoftBank Group,Tiger Global and Matrix Partners India
July 2014
Series C
$41 Million
Steadview Capital and Sequoia Capital
November 2013
Series B
$20 Million
Matrix Partners, Tiger Global Management
April 2012
Series A
$5 Million
Tiger Global Management
April 2011
Angel
$330K
Kunal Bahl, Anupam Mittal, Rehan yar Khan
Ola – Shareholding
Ola’s shareholding pattern as of March 2023, sourced from Tracxn:
Ola Shareholders
Percentage
Bhavish Aggarwal
8.7%
Ankit Bhati
3.3%
Nuvama Wealth
0.6%
SoftBank
20.4%
Tencent
8.1%
Plum Wood Investment
6.3%
MacRitchie Investments
3.6%
Z47
3.6%
Steadview
3.6%
Falcon Edge Capital
2.8%
DST Global
5.9%
Tiger Global Management
1.6%
GIC
1.3%
Helion Venture Partners
1.1%
Fort Canning Investments
1.1%
UCRNTFund
0.8%
Accel
1.3%
ABG Capital
0.8%
Tekne Capital Management
0.7%
Vanguard
0.8%
Delivery Hero
0.7%
Sailing Capital
0.5%
China-Eurasian Economic Fund
0.5%
Trident Trust
0.5%
Mirae Asset
0.5%
Segantii Capital Management
0.3%
DIG Investment
0.3%
Alpha Wave Global
0.4%
Axis Mutual Fund
0.2%
JSGCL
0.2%
Siddhant Partners
0.2%
Gemini
0.1%
Didi Chuxing
0.1%
Sarin Family India
< 0.1%
J3T Ventures
< 0.1%
ARK Impact Asset Management
< 0.1%
Arrow Capital
< 0.1%
Brand Capital
< 0.1%
The Alka Family Trust
0.1%
Qualcomm Ventures
< 0.1%
Adinath Family Trust
< 0.1%
Lyonsasset
< 0.1%
HBM Partners
< 0.1%
Price Descendant Trust
< 0.1%
THC Ventures
< 0.1%
Sequoia Capital
–
Blume Ventures
–
Bessemer Venture Partners
–
RNT Associates
–
CIM
–
CIIE
–
Angel
2.6%
ESOP Pool
5.4%
Other Investors
0.1%
Total
100.0%
Ola Shareholding
Ola – Growth and Revenue
Ola has covered an interesting journey from being nothing to becoming a company that provides a livelihood to thousands of people. Today, Ola has become a part of people’s everyday life in many cities.
Some key growth statistics of Ola would reflect that:
It completes more than 1 bn rides each year.
The service of Ola is spread over 250 cities.
Ola has empowered more than 1.5 mn entrepreneurs who are currently with Ola as driver-partners.
The company has 7000+ employees working with OLA.
Ola Cars
Ola has already launched its first electric scooters under Ola Electric and was set to step on a new journey involving used cars, which started in October 2021. According to the reports dated July 27, 2021, Ola looked to start its used car retailing business soon in Bengaluru. The ride-hailing giant aimed for a full-stack model where it will buy cars from the driver partners of the company and other people, and sell them to buyers after they are set right, said a close source aware of the future plans requesting anonymity. The new business was called “Ola Cars,” which was finally launched on October 7, 2021. Ola Cars helped customers purchase new and old vehicles. Furthermore, it also offered many other services like vehicle purchase, finance and insurance for vehicles, and its registration, and maintenance. This business of Ola was decided by the ride-hailing giant to be reoriented, as far as its June 25, 2022 statement goes.
Ola, which suffered heavily due to the coronavirus pandemic, being a ride-hailing app, has seen quite a progress after the lockdown and other strictures have been lifted. The company confirmed that the recovery it has witnessed from the second wave of Covid was 3X faster than what it has seen while shaking off the blues of the first wave.
India is moving again! Our @olacabs GMV crossed pre-covid levels last week. Recovery from second wave is 3 times faster. Clearly India is up and about! Some interesting trends as #IndiaIsMoving👇 pic.twitter.com/ERJfBR5s8f
Ola Co-founder and CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, has also announced that Ola has seen 10 million users using the app, for the first time ever in FY21. This increase in usage is primarily because most people now are opting to avoid public transport and moving on with personal or shared ways of mobility. Furthermore, Ola Autos, which has seen a 150% rise, are also quite popular.
Bhavish further emphasized that the “Ola rides are safe.” He said that over 3 lakh Ola drivers are currently vaccinated and 100% of drivers are likely to get vaccinated soon.
A warm welcome to the Indian startup expanding its transportation services in foreign countries, now OLA in the UK after Australia and New Zealand markets. Ola is looking at bigger markets. Ola had been working towards this launch for the last year. CEO of Ola, Bhavish Aggarwal said, “It is not just yet another city launch for us. It is a transformative event for all of us at Ola.”
Bhavish Aggarwal, the Indian Entrepreneur, and co-founder of OLA Cabs have expressed immense happiness in bringing OLA to the United Kingdom and calls it a ‘momentous moment’ for everyone associated with OLA.
The United Kingdom has one of the world’s most evolved transportation markets. UK worked with black cabs and private hire vehicles (PHV) round-the-clock catering to people. Then, there came OLA, India based online ride-hailing company marching towards the UK, which will be serving as the only on-demand app to offer both Black cab and PHV facilities to people. With the known fact of the UK with its best-regulated taxi services, OLA is about to enter the market. Britain already is embedded with multi-billion dollar ride-sharing giant apps like UBER on its fast pacing on roads.
Ola obtained the license to operate in South Wales and Greater Manchester as per a press release as it’s the first step as ‘OLA in the UK’. OLA is engaging with policymakers and regulators to expand its network over a period of time. It is currently looking to expand its services throughout the UK. This seems a wise decision entering into the UK market, which faces mobility issues for the people relying on public transport services.
The company has come up with more facilities for commuters as per their convenience and choice. It ensures facilities with 24/7 safety, in-app emergency services, Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) screened drivers, sharing live location, live tracking, reaching out to emergency contacts if needed, etc. OLA app is user-friendly and is instantaneous in catering to all needs of the people.
OLA in the UK is all set for its second innings globally after launching across seven cities in Australia with its maiden launch. It also has its sketch to launch in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka soon.
Despite the fact that Uber is one of the most sought ride-sharing apps in the UK and its territorial presence in 70+ countries, OLA is enthusiastic and is firm to take a stand globally with 1+ million drivers across various cities. With a huge customer base and the most accessed app in the Indian sub-continent, OLA has an edge over Uber in India. It must have its own strategies to make it successful in the transportation overseas market.
Time for us to wait and watch the Indian-based company establish its market on British grounds.
Ola Answers “Why does my driver cancel my Ola ride?”
Ola founder cum CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has finally replied to “Why does my driver cancel my Ola ride?” by introducing new features to its ride aggregating app on December 21, 2021.
The aforementioned question is the 2nd most popular question that Bhavish gets. Cab cancellation is something that all of the industry’s players face but that issue will soon be bettered with the new feature of the Ola app, which will enable the drivers to see an approx drop location and the payment mode before they accept an Ola ride. Bhavish tweeted, “Enabling drivers is key to reducing cancellations.”
The cab aggregating giant has always kept the drop location and the approx payment method hidden from the drivers, however, that somehow was not working out, as pointed out by Vineeta Singh, Sugar cosmetics CEO earlier in August 2021. However, the working of the latest feature has already been enthusiastically confirmed by Vineeta. Here goes her latest tweet:
My @Olacabs driver told me that they’ve started seeing approximate destinations before accepting a booking! This is fabulous @bhash! Building for India 💪🏻 https://t.co/83uyQwTwSE
In a recent report by ET, OLA chief Bhavish Aggarwal was reported to have met Uber officials in San Francisco, USA. This was the reason why the talks of the Ola-Uber merger circulated. However, Aggarwal dismissed such talks by saying, “Absolute rubbish. We’re very profitable and growing well.” Bhavish also took a dig at the US-based ride-sharing company by mentioning subtly that if any other company wants to exit from India, they can do so wilfully, as per his tweet. The Ola Founder-CEO further claimed that OLA is one of the most profitable ride-hailing companies in the world, and has a strong balance sheet. “We are the market leader in India and are much bigger than other players,” he added, along with mentioning any merger is completely out of the question. Ola is open to acquisitions though to further cement its position in India, as per reports dated July 30, 2022.
Ola Store Renamed as Ola Dash
Ola started a 15-minute delivery or quick delivery service in several parts of Bengaluru. Via this wing of Ola, the company decided to deliver grocery, pet care, and personal care products. Ola decided to start its ‘Ola Store’ initially in a few localities in the city and will have eventually planned to expand its services to other cities in the upcoming months. This new service was availed through the Ola app, which was available for selected customers, who were able to choose from around 2000 items. This made Ola stand as an emerging competitor of brands like Grofers, BigBasket, Swiggy, Dunzo, and more.
Ola Store eventually declared that it would be a 10-minute grocery delivery service and that it had already set up 15 dark stores in Mumbai and Bengaluru, as of November 30, 2021. Ola aimed to establish around 300 dark stores for the delivery of groceries and conveniences by January 2022. The firm also claimed to deliver around 1000 orders per day. The leading online cab aggregator announced having a fixed budget of around Rs 250 crore for their supermarket delivery business. This was the third time that Ola had attempted to foray into the segment. Ola Store had been renamed as Ola Dash, as per the reports dated January 26, 2022. The new name replaced the old one to infuse the element of speed and faster delivery. The Ola Dash network was estimated to expand its network of dark stores to comprise 500 dark stores, which will be spread across 20 cities and will make it the largest dark store network in India, as of January 28, 2022. However, the Ola Dash business failed to succeed in the long run and was suspended by Ola, as per the reports dated June 25, 2022. Ola Dash had last served 9 cities in total and was spread across 200 dark stores, which offered an assortment of 2500+ SKUs. ‘Store to Door’ was also on and was delivered in 10 minutes.
Ola – Financials
Ola has demonstrated significant financial developments over the past few years, with notable changes in revenue and profitability. Below is a detailed breakdown of Ola’s financial performance from FY24 to FY20.
Particulars
FY24
FY23
FY22
FY21
FY20
Revenue
INR 2,800 crore
INR 2,481.3 crore
INR 1,679.5 crore
INR 1,168.2 crore
INR 2,844.1 crore
Expenses
INR 2107 crore
INR 2,858.1 crore
INR 2,268.6 crore
INR 2,007.1 crore
INR 5,058.1 crore
Profit/Loss
INR -10 crore
INR -525.5 crore
INR -961.7 crore
INR -561.3 crore
INR -2,213.9 crore
Ola Financials
Ola Revenue:
Particulars
FY24
FY23
India Mobility
INR 1,761 crore
INR 1,985 crore
Financial Services
INR 227 crore
INR 63 crore
Others
INR 24 crore
INR 81 crore
In FY24, Ola’s India Mobility revenue declined to INR 1,761 crore from INR 1,985 crore in FY23, indicating a slowdown in ride-hailing services. However, Financial Services saw a significant jump from INR 63 crore in FY23 to INR 227 crore in FY24, reflecting strong growth in Ola’s fintech segment. Revenue from Other segments dropped from INR 81 crore to INR 24 crore, suggesting a strategic shift or reduced focus in these areas.
Ola has also introduced Ola money. The products offered under Ola Money are Ola Money credit card, Ola money postpaid, Ola money mobile wallet, and Ola money hospicash. Ola hospicash is a collaboration between Ola and Religare health insurance that allows the policyholders to claim Rs 5000 per day in case of hospitalization. It has further declared that it will invest up to Rs 786.1 crore in this Ola Financial Services subsidiary in December 2021.
Ola operates with transparency. The commission is given to drivers for every sale made. Ola is known to charge far less than many other traditional operators.
Ola Electric
Electric Scooters
Ola launched India’s first multimodal electric vehicle project on 26 May 2017. The project brought together industry experts and the Indian government to pioneer electric vehicles for the public and promote shared mobility in Nagpur. Established as a separate entity, Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. Ltd. also reached unicorn status with a $250 million investment from SoftBank in July 2019.
After exceeding expectations in the pre-booking round, Ola Electric scooters went live for purchase on their website and via the Ola app on September 15, 2021. The company reportedly sold Rs 1100 crores worth of electric scooters in just 2 days.
Electric Cars
Ola has unveiled its plans to launch its first electric car in the next 2-3 years, as per reports dated July 16, 2022. OLA CEO Bhavish Aggarwal teased and announced that his company is gearing up to build the sportiest car that has ever been built in India. Some concept design ideas have been ready already. The first Ola Electric car is to be launched from its new 4W factory that is to be built and would be another factory, separate from Ola’s Futurefactory for 2Ws.
Ola Parcel
In an attempt to challenge Swiggy Genie and Dunzo’s courier service, Ola announced the launched of Ola Parcel, an all-electric on-demand delivery service, on October 6, 2023. As a logistics company playing a role akin to Shadowfax, Shiprocket, etc., it will be onboarding itself to ONDC.
The founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati had to face many challenges in the beginning. They worked long hours and sometimes Ankit, the co-founder of Ola, had to code for 48 hours straight. They have had to drive the customer to their desired locations at times because the drivers did not show up. However, this did not dampen their spirits. The duo worked day and night and people started liking their services.
The twist in their story happened when angel investors Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl invested Rs 2 crores in their business. This gave them an initial push and there was no looking back for Ola from there.
As much as Ola wanted to meet the needs of the customers by scaling up to different cities, each city faced its own infrastructural challenge. The app required the use of the 2G network. The team had to design an app that could accommodate network connectivity in smaller towns.
Ola incurs RBI penalty for Ola Financial Services
Ola Financial Services, an OLA subsidiary, has been imposed a penalty of Rs 1.68 crore by the RBI, which claimed that the mobility company failed to comply with the RBI norms in association with the latest changes in the prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) and know your customer (KYC) policies.
RBI mentioned that the entity didn’t adhere to “certain provisions of the Master Directions on PPIs dated August 27, 2021, and the Master Direction – Know Your Customer (KYC) Direction, 2016 dated February 25, 2016”. After discovering this, the central bank imposed the penalty, exercising the powers vested to the body under Section 30 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. To justify the huge penalty that it had brought down on Ola, RBI stated that it has earlier showcaused Ola as soon as it discovered that the firm was breaching the KYC norms, but Ola failed to provide a suitable response.
Ola Layoffs
Ola is reportedly looking to curb its expenses, for which, it is looking to lay off somewhere between 400-500 employees, as per reports dated July 6, 2022. This has risen up and would affect close to 1000 Ola employees, as per reports dated July 29, 2022. Sources and reports have claimed that Ola has already asked its key managers to prepare a list of employees that the company can let go. The ride-hailing giant has already ceased making investments in international markets like the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, and has also shut down its subsidiaries like Ola Dash and Ola Cars, all of which were cash-burn-heavy lines of business. However, with it, the cab aggregating company has also put a stop to the revenue channels that might have benefited it, thereby solely relying on its mobility services. Ola has laid off a huge number of employees to date. The last known layoffs were from its quick commerce wing, Ola Dash, from where the company reportedly laid off around 2100 employees in April 2022. Though this is still unconfirmed, it might be the largest layoffs that 2022 has seen so far.
Ola had already started terminating its employees and has also deferred their performance appraisal for this year, as far as the July 9, 2022 reports go. Ola has further announced that it would focus on its EV business, and also increase its hiring for the same.
Unfair Trade Practices and Violation of Consumer Rights
Cab aggregators Ola and Uber got legal notices from the Central Consumer Protection Authority that sent Notices to Ola and Uber for unfair trade practices and the violation of consumer rights, as per reports dated May 20, 2022. The central government of India had previously warned Ola and Uber of strict action if they don’t improve their systems and redress the rising complaints. Now, the CCPA has given a 15-day for them to do so.
Ola Resignations
Ola has witnessed numerous resignations lately, which became even more prominent after the increasing fire accidents and amid the preparations for Ola going public sometime soon in 2022. Ola had already seen the resignations of COO Gaurav Porwal, CTO Swayam Saurabh, General Counsel Sandeep Chowdhury, and HR head Rohit Munjal among others, early in 2021. The co-founders of Ola Electric Ankit Jain and Anand Shah had also put down their papers, and now it has been seen that Dinesh Radhakrishnan the CTO of Ola Electric, quit the company on May 8, 2022. Arun Sirdeshmukh, who was the CEO of Ola Cars, also left last week. Already rocked by resignations, Ola’s Head of Talent Acquisition, Shikhar Sood also left the company on July 7, 2022. Ola has seen too many top-level exits already and this brings us to the cause of the exits. As per the surveys of the top 10 senior employees of Ola, the culture of “act fast, think later” has been dominant.
Ola ShutDowns
Ola shutdowns are not something new. The cab aggregating giant has failed to pivot time and again, especially in the food delivery segment. The descaling of the food business is now announced for the third time on May 20, 2022, when Ola said that it would sell most of its cloud kitchen equipment at up to 30-50% discounts.
The first of Ola shutdown in the food delivery segments was witnessed when Ola pulled the plug on Ola Cafes in 2016 after a year since it started in 2015 to take on Uber Eats and foray into the food industry. Ola Stores was also shut down in the same year. It next acquired FoodPanda, which was completed in February 2022, but failed with the same so much so that Ola was left operating with only 50 cloud kitchens. The company later suspended Foodpanda’s operations completely in May 2019 and laid off around 1500 delivery executives and 40 mid-level staff. Ola eventually tried to pivot again with a handful of flagship food brands like the Khichdi Experiment, Paratha Experiment, The Biryani Experiment, and more. The company had also opted for a multichannel approach, set up 50 cloud kitchens, and had also included mom-and-pop stores in this initiative. Besides, Ola also wanted to acquire Freshmenu to scale its food business, but the deal failed to flesh out.
Ola has decided to pull the plug on its used cars and quick commerce business – Ola Cars and Ola Dash, as per reports dated June 25, 2022. These businesses of Ola are shut down with the sole aim of strengthening its EV and mobility businesses, which the company is planning to only focus on for the time being. Though Ola Cars still has hopes of being reoriented, which is expected to help strengthen the go-to-market strategy of Ola Electric, Ola Dash is to be closed down completely.
Here’s briefly looking at the failed ventures of Ola:
Name
Industry
Founded
Shutdown
Ola Dash
Quick Commerce
2015
2022
Ola Foods
Food Delivery
2020
2022
Foodpanda
Food Delivery
2019
2020
Ola Cafe
Food Delivery
2015
2016
Ola – Partnerships
Apart from the drivers that Ola partners with as clients, the most notable partnership that the cab aggregating giant has witnessed is with Siemens. Ola announced a press release stating ‘Ola adopts Siemens’ Digital Enterprise to build India’s most advanced manufacturing facility’ on January 20, 2021. Ola has partnered with Siemens to build its upcoming electric vehicle manufacturing facility. This announcement comes when OLA has an MoU with the government of Tamil Nadu to invest around INR 2,400 Cr towards building this facility.
It is expected that the factory will generate around 10,000 jobs, with an initial capacity of 2 million units a year and making it the largest scooter manufacturing facility in the world. This will serve as Ola’s global manufacturing hub catering to customers in India and across Europe, the UK, Latin America, and ANZ (Australia and New Zealand)
This factory is going to be amazing and technologically advanced with 5,000 robots stationed across various functions and will be built on Industry 4.0 principles. Ola will have access to Siemens’ integrated Digital Twin design and manufacturing solutions to digitalize and validate products and production ahead of actual operations. It will have Ola’s proprietary AI Engine and tech stack deeply integrated into each aspect of the manufacturing process. Thereby, providing unprecedented control, automation, and quality to the operations.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman & Group CEO, Ola, said, ‘‘Ola is delighted to partner with Siemens to build the most advanced manufacturing facility in the country. This will be our global hub and will set a benchmark in quality, scale and efficiency, demonstrating India’s capability to build world class cutting edge products. We look forward to bringing this factory online in the coming months and putting our products in the hands of customers.”
Ola’s scooter blends excellent design, sensational performance, and incredible technology into an amazing product. It has already won several prestigious designs and innovation awards including the IHS Markit Innovation award at CES and the German Design Award.
Sunil Mathur, MD & CEO, Siemens India, said, “Siemens is a global leader in Industry 4.0 and we are proud to contribute to Ola’s vision of creating a factory of the future using our automation and digitalization expertise to ensuring the highest levels of productivity and quality while enabling an agile and flexible production process.”
Ola – Acquisitions and Merger
Ola has acquired 8 organizations in total. The last acquisition of Ola was that of Avail Finance, which is a financial services startup for the blue-collar workforce led by the Ola chief Bhavish Aggarwal’s brother, Ankush Aggarwal. The acquisition of Avail Finance was announced on March 24, 2022, and was finally completed on April 11, 2022, via a share swap deal worth $50 million. The leading cab aggregating giant held a 9% stake in Avail due to its investment in the startup in 2019 before it acquired the company.
GeoSpoc was the previous company that Ola acquired on October 5, 2021. It was the company’s first acquisition in a period of over 2 years after it acquired Pikup.ai on August 13, 2019. ANI Technologies, the parent of the ride-hailing major Ola and Ola Electric, completed its acquisition of Foodpanda from Delivery Hero, the Germany-based parent of Foodpanda.
The acquisition of Foodpanda was first announced by Ola in December 2017 for around $200 mn to reinforce its food delivery service. Fast forward to February 5, 2022, the food delivery giant held an extraordinary general meeting where the shareholders of Ola decided to issue 3,793 Series J2 CCPS to Delivery Hero, for Rs 8.5 crore. Mentioning that to acquire 100% of the shares in Foodpanda, the company stated that it will be finally issuing 3,793 Series J2 CCPS to Delivery Hero instead of cash consideration, which will allow the company to acquire 77,10,564 equity shares, which were held by Delivery Hero in Foodpanda, as per the news dated February 24, 2022.
Founded by Ralf Wenzel, Benjamin Bauer and Felix Plog in 2012 in Germany, Foodpanda was a successful business at that time in India, however, due to piling expenses, miscommunication, technical flaws, lack of ownership, lack of a foolproof business, and revenue model, the startup struggled much in India before it finally got acquired by Ola. Foodpanda reportedly pulled in 30,000-35,000 orders per day when it was at its peak of India operations. Furthermore, it launched “The Crave Party” in the last week of August 2018, which rained a range of discounts for the customers, and multiplied the order volumes of the app by 10X in the same year.
Currently, the Foodpanda app lies suspended after the Ola acquisition of FoodPanda.
Here’s the list of the prominent Ola acquisitions to check out:
Ola had acquired the Pune-based geospatial service provider, GeoSpoc in order to improve their location and geospatial technologies with an undisclosed amount. Talking about the acquisition, CEO and Co-Founder, Bhavish Aggarwal mentioned the need for “better, newer maps and geospatial services” for the “new mobility” and to build the future of location services.
The geospatial sector in India has witnessed quite a growth lately, the market of which, in India, is currently valued at Rs 15,000 crores, and is expected to hit Rs 1 Lakh crores by 2029-2030. The company completes its acquisition of GeoSpoc in full for Rs 26 crore, as per the reports dated December 8, 2021.
Ola had already executed an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), which was worth around $10.5 million (Rs 78.6 crores) for its three former employees and one current executive. Now, the company has further decided to provide ESOP encashment facilities for the former chief executive officer of Ola Foods, Pranay Jivrajka; former chief operating officer of Ola, Pallav Singh; Nimish Joshi, former Vice President, and its current chief product officer, Suvonil Chatterjee.
Among all of them, Jivrajka has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the ESOP encashment program of Ola with Rs 38.17 crore, who is followed by Pallav Singh, Suvonil Chatterjee, and Nimish Joshi, who possess Rs 24.8 crore, Rs 8.5 crore, and Rs 7.08 crore respectively. Ola declared this development soon after it announced the expansion of its ESOP pool to Rs 3,000 crore. Furthermore, the company also noted that it will have some fresh stocks, worth Rs 400 crore allocated for the employees in the run-up to its IPO. Ola currently boasts of having one of the largest ESOP pools among the late-stage startups of India, which also includes companies like Paytm, OYO, and BYJU’S.
Ola – Competitors
Ola directly competes with Uber; the world’s most well-financed startup having raised more than $24 billion in equity and debt on a recent valuation of $82 billion. Other players in India include:
Meru Cabs Company Pvt. Ltd., which owns Meru Cabs
Carzonrent (India) Pvt. Ltd., which owns Carzonrent
In the bike taxi segment, Rapido is slowly capturing Ola’s market share.
InDriver, the international ride-hailing app is the hot favorite today in India, which was founded in Russia and is headquartered in Mountain View, California, US.
Ola – Future Plans
Ola’s future plans focus on expanding its ride-hailing business, investing in electric mobility, and developing battery cell manufacturing. Its ride-hailing division in India is profitable and market-leading, with CEO Bhavish Aggarwal stating that the cab business has recovered to pre-pandemic levels. In electric mobility, Ola Electric is investing in R&D and its battery cell manufacturing unit to make its scooters more affordable. The company aims to start commercial production of battery cells by early 2025. A significant portion of its IPO proceeds will be used for battery cell manufacturing, reinforcing its focus on sustainable EV solutions.
FAQs
Is Ola a Chinese Company?
Ola is an Indian Company but is funded by Chinese investors like Tencent Holdings, Steadview Capital, Sailing Capital, Eternal Yield International Ltd, and China-Eurasian Economic Co-operation Fund with an estimated investment of $500 million.
Who are the Ola shareholders?
Ola’s major shareholders/investors include SoftBank Group (Japanese), Tiger Global (US-based), Tencent (Chinese Venture Capital), Matrix Partners (US-based), and DST Global (Russia).
Ola was founded in 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati as an online cab service. It started as Olatrips.com, offering intercity rides, but soon shifted to ride-hailing for city travel. The company quickly expanded, becoming a market leader in India’s mobility sector.
Who is the founder of Ola Cabs?
Ola was founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2010.
What is the full form of OLA?
There is no full form as such. The name is derived from the Spanish word ‘Hola’ which translates to ‘hello’.
How to become a partner of Ola?
You can easily be a partner of Ola by simply going to www.partners.olacabs.com. There you will find 3 options to become an Ola Partner. You can be an Ola Partner:
If you already have a car and you want to attach that car with Ola
If you know driving, but lack a car
If you have a fleet and you want to attach the same with Ola
When was OLA Electric founded?
Ola Electric was founded in 2017, as a new subsidiary of the Ola company that caters to the new-age, sensible users of electric vehicles.
What is Ola Dash?
Ola Dash was an Ola service that the cab aggregating giant founded in 2015, to provide quick commerce service. However, the service was suspended as per the Ola statements dated June 25, 2022.
ABG Shipyard has been making news in recent days. The scam by this shipbuilding business has not only placed the Narendra Modi administration under scrutiny but has also thrown the opposition and the Modi government into a political fight. The ABG Shipyard Limited, a Gujarat-based shipbuilding enterprise, was accused of defrauding a consortium of 28 banks, including the State Bank of India (SBI), IDBI, and ICICI, for Rs 22,800 crores.
Without a doubt, ABG Shipyard is the largest private shipyard in India. The organisation has a large client base around the globe. They are the first to create all-aluminium jet-propelled watercraft that are powered by diesel-electric dynamic ships.
The company’s registered office and yard are both located in Surat, Gujarat. The company’s first ship was delivered in the year 1990. In the 15 years after its inception in 1991, the firm has grown to become India’s largest private sector shipbuilding yard, with a global client base of happy clients.
AGB Shipyard Fraud: How Did the Fraud Come to Light?
Based on a complaint from the State Bank of India, the Enforcement Directorate filed a money-laundering investigation against Gujarat-based ABG Shipyard, which has been described as being implicated in “India’s biggest bank scam in history.” The company’s chairman, Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal, has been questioned by the CBI for defaulting on loans of Rs 22,842 crore that ABG Shipyard obtained from 28 banks.
According to the CBI, a forensic audit conducted by Ernst & Young in 2019 indicated that funds were diverted to other linked firms, with loans reportedly being utilised for investments through offshore subsidiaries. According to the examining agency, these loans were not utilised for the intended purpose, thereby breaking the agreements.
AGB Shipyard Fraud: Actions Taken by SBI Against the company
On November 8, 2019, the SBI filed a complaint on a very serious note in order to get strong clarifications, and on March 12, 2020, the SBI requested explanations too. In August of that year, the bank filed a new case. The CBI moved on the complaint after “scrutinising” it for over a year and a half, registering the FIR on February 7 this year.
The SBI said in its lawsuit that the problem was caused by the global economic slump and the shipbuilding sector, according to the news agency Press Trust of India. It had “affected the shipping sector as a result of a drop in commodities demand and prices, as well as a drop in cargo demand.”
AGB Shipyard Fraud: Banks Involved in the Case
According to a case filed by the State Bank of India, AGB Shipyard owes the bank 2,925 crores, ICICI Bank 7,089 crore, IDBI Bank 3,634 crore, Bank of Baroda 1,614 crore, Punjab National Bank (PNB) 1,244 crore, and Indian Overseas Bank 1,228 crore (IOB).
According to CBI, the funds were utilised for reasons other than those for which they were given by banks. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has opened a second money laundering inquiry into them.
AGB Shipyard Fraud: Why Is It Considered As India’s Biggest Bank Fraud?
Previous diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi’s scams totalled about Rs 14,000 crore, while Vijay Mallya’s fraud was Rs 9,900 crore. The case of AGB Shipyard has crossed amounts of all the previous scams in history.
Former Chairman and MD of ABG Shipyard Limited Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal, former executive director Santhanam Muthaswamy, and directors Ashwini Kumar, Sushil Kumar Agarwal, and Ravi Vimal Nevatia have all been charged by the investigating agency and the officials. Meanwhile, searches have been carried out in 13 ABG Shipyard facilities.
ABG Shipyard is the subject of a forensic audit that was organised and conducted by Ernst & Young LLP. Between April 2012 and July 2017, it uncovers evidence of fraud. According to the audit, fraud was committed through “finances diversion, theft, and criminal breach of trust, with the goal of gaining unlawfully at the expense of the bank’s funds.”
ABG Shipyard received loans from 28 institutions in the form of three distinct types of loans. The funds generated from these loans were subsequently funnelled through 98 sister concern firms for mostly personal benefit.
AGB Shipyard Fraud: Timeline of the events
1985: The ABG Group’s flagship enterprise, ABG Shipyard Ltd, was founded. It was run and operated by Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal and is in the shipbuilding and repair industry, with shipyards in Gujarat’s Dahesh and Surat cities. It is financed by a consortium of 28 banks, with ICICI being the principal bank.
2005-2008: Despite warnings of danger from the global financial crisis of 2008, banks continue to lend grandly to ABG Shipyards.
2008: The worldwide financial crisis, which was sparked by the housing bubble in the United States and the fall of Lehman Brothers, affected ABG Shipyards.
2014: Under corporate debt restructuring, or CDR, SBI tries to restructure debts to ABG Shipyard. The reorganisation failed terribly because ABG Shipyards was unable to pay the interest and instalments on time and with parity.
2019: SBI identified the fraud in January 2019.
2020: SBI filed a complaint in 2019 and then again a detailed complaint in 2020.
2022: ABG Shipyard and ABG International Private Ltd are both booked by CBI. According to the CBI’s FIR, ABG SL owes a total of Rs 22,842 crore.
The CBI has issued lookout notices for Rishi Agarwal, ABG executives Santhanam Muthuswamy and Ashwini Kumar, and founder Rishi Agarwal.
Meanwhile, the opposition, led by the Congress party, had accused the Narendra Modi administration of participating in “India’s biggest bank fraud” of Rs 22,842 crore, which is larger than Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi’s PNB scandal of Rs 14,000 crore and breaks the history of scams. The BJP government at the Centre pointed out that the fraud occurred during the UPA administration, the Congress retaliated by questioning why it took the CBI and SBI nearly seven years to find the crime. Along with that, the banks are in a terrible position of attempting to recoup their losses.
FAQ
What happened to ABG Shipyard?
The CBI has filed a complaint against ABG Shipyard for cheating 28 banks of Rs 22,482 crores.
Who is the owner of ABG Shipyard?
Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal is the owner and chairman of ABG Shipyard.
The article is contributed By Vikash-Mishra, CEO and Co-founder of Moeving.
Animals, especially horses, have been central to transportation for a millennium. We humans had built our entire mobility infrastructure to suit this mode of transportation. However, when the modern car came into existence in the early 1900s, it replaced horses at an unanticipated pace. In a few urban settings like New York, the transition took less than a decade. People had to completely rebuild the transportation infrastructure, including fuel pumps, service stations and roads. And, this happened while the world was fighting World War I.
A hundred years later, today, the transport industry is coming full circle. The world is at the cusp of another transportation revolution, one that promises to eliminate emissions related to transportation and make it sustainable again. This time, the ICE (Internal Combustion Engines) engines are at the receiving end. As of today, it might look like an insignificant trickle globally but the tipping point for Electric Vehicles (EV) is not far. With much of Europe already reaching double digit percentage sales penetration, steadily globally uptake of EVs driven by technology innovation, will do to ICE vehicles exactly what happened to horse-driven vehicles; obsolete. The speed at which the transition will take place in this decade, especially in high-density areas like larger cities, means we will witness a time when EVs will outnumber fossil fuel vehicles by several times.
The transition will not be a simple passing of the baton though. We will have to reimagine the entire transport industry like we did when transitioning from horses to cars. Working in siloed partnerships will not lead to meaningful at-scale growth, but taking a holistic ecosystem approach to tie all the loose ends can lead to faster adoption of EVs. The form factor of EVs, which has started as an extension or as a mirror image of the ICEVs, will transform significantly. These will be largely triggered by economic dynamics (policy push towards manufacturing, new age financing of vehicles, natural realignment of cities in line with MRTS, etc.), technology interventions from AI, IoT (leveraging data science for better vehicle quality, autonomous technologies), battery form-factor (flexible batteries allowing EV form factors fluidity), as well as fast charging technology (adding to range and reducing downtime). However, the biggest impact on how EVs evolve will be triggered by changing human behaviour. As people move from ownership to access, and as more move to hybrid working styles, the way people view mobility will change.
Like during the transition from horses to cars, there will be massive disruption with some clear winners and heavy losers. Like in the 1900s, transportation infrastructure was rebuilt, during the EV disruption, given the higher upfront vehicle cost but lower vehicle built-up complexity, we need to further optimize our EV infrastructure investments, for example in terms of charging and maintenance, and build highly distributed, accessible low cost infrastructure with an ecosystem approach. There will be limitless opportunities for early adopters who can visualise some of these changes early enough. This is true for people and organisations, but even more so for nations. India, due to its unique position (very low per-capita personal vehicle density, evolving urban infrastructure, robust start-up ecosystem, abundance of rare earth metals, growing renewable energy focus) can become a global hub for EV manufacturing and adoption if it plays its cards right.
When it comes to automobiles, millennials today do not believe in ownership and maintenance of their cars and bikes. They believe in renting, using, enjoying, and being merry! Exploiting this insight merely on its merit, Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Hemant Kumar Sah, Abhishek Mahajan, Vasant Verma, and Amit Sahu started Drivezy in the year 2015.
Drivezy (formerly JustRide) is India’s largest marketplace for car and two-wheeler sharing. Through Drivezy, travelers can book scooters, motorcycles and cars from people living around them.
All in all, Drivezy is a car rental platform. Car owners can list their vehicles on Drivezy when they are not using it and the customers can rent it whenever they want to. It offers the following features to the users:
Bookings can be done on the website or from the mobile application.
18+ is the legal age to book bikes and cars on Drivezy.
The users can book the vehicles on an hourly, daily, weekly basis. They also have the option of fuel or no fuel vehicle bookings.
The security deposit on Drivezy is minimal. It can range from INR 0 to INR 999.
Drivezy provides its customers with home pickup service.
Drivezy releases instant payments to the car owners and refunds to the consumers in the given case.
Founders of Drivezy and team
The Drivezy founders are Abhishek Mahajan, Amit Sahu, Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Hemant Kumar Sah, and Vasant Verma.
Drivezy Founders
Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Co-founder and CEO of Drivezy – Ashwarya is a graduate in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Also an alumnus of Y Combinator batch of 2016 and the first batch of Google Launchpad. He served as a mentor at Launchpad during his post-Graduation.
Hemant Kumar, Co-founder of Drivezy – Before launching Drivezy, Kumar was an application developer at Service Now and a senior consultant at Oracle India before that. Kumar has graduated in B.tech from MNNIT.
Abhishek Mahajan, Co-founder of Drivezy – Graduated from IIT Bombay, Abhishek was an Associate Consultant at PwC India. He is also a CFA Level 2 candidate.
Vasant Verma, Co-founder and COO of Drivezy – Before Drivezy, Verma worked as a global market analyst at Nomura. Vasant Verma has a graduation degree in B.tech from MNNIT.
Amit Sahu, Co-founder of Drivezy – After graduating from the MNNIT, Allahabad, Sahu worked as a vehicle testing engineer in Honda R&D India Dept. Performance testing of Various cars would fall under his domain. After this, he went on to work at Drivezy.
It all started when one of the co-founders Ashwarya Singh bought a new car that met with an accident in the early days itself. Singh didn’t use the car so much but still considerably spent a chunk of his salary in the maintenance of the car. This got him thinking about creating a platform where one could rent cars.
There was one more thought that drove the inception of Drivezy, then justride.in, that the majority of people in India can’t afford to buy cars. He then went on to discuss this idea with his college friends, now the co-founders and launched Drivezy in 2015 in Bangalore.
Drivezy – Startup Launch
Drivezy was previously called Just Ride. In 2017, the team thought of adding bikes to their range of products to expand and increase their user base. Drivezy works on a model where the ideal cars and bikes of the owners are listed with them and the vehicle owners can generate cash even when they are not using the bikes or cars. The individual owners of the commercial vehicles are also registering with Drivezy to make money.
Drivezy – Business Model and Revenue Model
The Drivezy business model works on commission. Drivezy lets the vehicle owners list their vehicles on their mobile applications. The company takes roughly 20-25% of the revenue pooled from renting this vehicle.
The first and foremost hurdle for Drivezy was the trust issues amongst the vehicle owners. They wouldn’t just rent their cars to random strangers. Though Drivezy provides guarantees, aggregator model, a peer-to-peer sharing model, and background checks of the users, this is a major challenge in the Indian markets.
The second hurdle was difficulty in leasing and buying of cars due to the financial problems.
With the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic, most of the businesses that relied on transport and communication, and mobility found themselves on unstable grounds. Drivezy is not an exception and therefore, after bearing with the economic downturn for over a year, the Bengaluru-based car and bike rental startup has finally decided to be acquired by Yamaha. The size of the acquisition will range between $45-50 million, as per reports.
Drivezy – Competitors
Drivezy cars kind of operates in a perfectly competitive market. There’s immense competition in the market with major players having massive market standing. Drivezy in totality competes with taxi aggregators and ridesharing startups like Ola, Uber, Bounce, LetsRide, PoolCircle, ZoomCar, Carzonrent, Wunder, and Ryde among others.
Drivezy – Funding and Investors
When it comes to funding, Drivezy has raised a total of $149.3M in funding over 10 rounds from various investors including Das Capital, Axon Partners, IT-Farm, Yamaha Motor Ventures, and Y Combinator, among others.
Here is a list of all the funding rounds of Drivezy:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
August 2015
Angel Round
$1 million
Anirudh Damani, Alok Mittal, Niraj Singh
November 2015
Seed Round
$2 million
–
March 2016
Series A
$400K
Dheeraj Jain
August 2016
Venture Round
$120K
Y Combinator
November 2016
Venture Round
$3 million
Susa Ventures, Kima Ventures, Axon Ventures, SCM Holdings and ITFarm from Japan
October 2017
Venture Round
$10 million
Das Capital
February 2018
Initial COin Offering
$5 million
Susa Ventures, Kima Ventures, Axon Ventures and other exiting investors along with other HNIs from Japan and Singapore
April 20, 2018
Second Round of Initial COin Offering
$8 million
Susa Ventures, Kima Ventures, Axon Ventures and other exiting investors along with other HNIs from Japan and Singapore
November 2018
Series B
$20 million
IT-Farm, Das Capital, Yamaha
November 2018
Debt Financing
$100 million
AnyPay
The company, since inception, had raised total funding of $49.45 million before closing the huge asset financing deal. In 2018, Drivezy secured $100 Mn in an asset financing deal with which the Drivezy team plans to induct close to 50,000 vehicles. The company had raised an amount close to $149.3 million.
The company’s tagline is “Drive It Like You Own It!”
Drivezy Logo
As pioneers in the Indian self drive car rental industry, the company believes in the mantra- “Why buy a car, when you can rent one?”.
Drivezy – Growth
Drivezy’s growth is coming at what seems to be a key inflection point for the transportation industry. The company claims to have a customer base of about 1.5 million registered users and with around 93% of them coming from the 18-35 age bracket. Cofounder Ashwarya Singh told that it has processed over 4 lakh bookings, and has 500 employees in 11 cities.
Operating cities- 21 cities of India
Average monthly customers- 2,00,000
Average monthly pending requests- 2300
Average monthly revenue- $150,000
Average monthly GMV- $950,000
The company earns a 15-30% commission for every successful transaction. In FY18, it clocked a GMV (Gross Merchandising Value) of $32 Million, growing by 200% since 2017.
Drivezy – Future Plans
Drivezy clocked gross sales of $32 million in 2018 and is targeting $80 million in 2019. Besides this, the company plans to launch in the US by starting with a fleet of 200 cars in San Francisco. Drivezy also plans to lunch its operations in Southeast Asia soon.
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs
How does Drivezy work?
Car owners can list their vehicles on Drivezy when they are not using it and the customers can rent it whenever they want toand they will be required to pay a nominal amount for every km travelled. The user will get the vehicle with full fuel tank and He/She has to return it with the same fuel level.
How much can I earn with Drivezy?
Drivezy claims that owners can earn up to INR 30,000/month by leasing out their vehicles.
Who are the Drivezy owners?
The Drivezy founders are Abhishek Mahajan, Amit Sahu, Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Hemant Kumar Sah, and Vasant Verma.
The recent news about the blockage of the Suez Canal has gained a lot of popularity on social media. The pictures of the blockage have been widely spread in the online world as memes. But the economic outcomes of the blockage of Suez canal are severe.
Let’s look at the Economic Outcomes of the Suez Canal crisis
A giant cargo ship which is 400 meter in length has blocked the Suez Canal. The Canal has been blocked by the ship for the past few days. The ship which is operated by the Taiwanese transport company evergreen marine is one of the world’s largest biggest container vessels.
The ship weighs 200,000 tones and has a maximum capacity of 20,000 containers. It is said that the ship had lost control after it entered the narrow passage of the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. The salvage company which is trying to refloat the ship has said that it might take weeks for them to complete the task.
Peter Berdowski who is the CEO of Dutch company Boskalis who is also one of the rescue teams trying to free the ship has said that depending on the situation, they can’t exclude that it might take weeks.
Economic outcome of the Suez Canal crisis
The ship has stopped 12% of the world’s seaborne trade and has already cost losses of billions. Almost 50 percent of the container ships pass through the Canal on a daily basis and around 30% of the global container traffic passes through it. The current situation is expected to cause a great damage to the global trade. It is expected that the prices of all essential commodities will increase.
The experts fear that the blockage has led to severe effect on the economy and the global trade. The blockage is costing around 400 million (around INR 2.8k crores) per hour, as ships are asked to take a longer route to reach their destinations.
Experts have said that this is the worst ship blockage ever witnessed. It is said that many cargo ships which have been diverted would take another 5-6 days to reach their destination.
Effect on Crude oil prices
It is said that more than 200 containers carry crude oils through the Canal on a daily basis. Experts have also told that the major hit would be for the small tankers and the crude oil exports from Europe to Asia.
The director of Asia oil at FGE Sri Paravaikkarasu has said that around 20% of Asia’s Naphtha which is crude oil is supplied through the Suez Canal. He said that re-routing of the ships would add more amount of fuel consumption for the ships that is around 800 tones and increase its operating expenses.
The shortage in the availability of the crude oil will lead to a jump in the crude oil prices. It is said that the crude oil prices have already increased due to the fear of the crude oil Suez Canal blockage in the past few days.
Data from Refinitiv has suggested that around 30 oil tankers have been waiting at both the sides of the Suez Canal. David Fyfe who is a chief economist at Argus Media which is a market research firm said that around 5-10 percent of the global shipments passing through the Suez Canal are crude oil, refined oil, and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Lars Jensen who is an independent container shipping expert based in Denmark has said that basically anything you see in the stores would be in shortage because of the blockage in the Suez Canal.
This includes everything from toilet papers, coffee, furniture, clothes, shoes, exercise equipment to car parts, carpets, and electronics. The blockage has also delayed e-commerce product deliveries which even include food.
Ian woods who is a marine cargo lawyer and partner at the London-based firm Clyde and Co. has said that, there are commodities worth millions of dollars on other ships waiting for the blockage to be cleared.
If the blockage is not cleared quickly then they would consider taking longer routes which will increase the operational charges and these extra charges will be carried down to the consumers.
It is said that eventually the consumers will have to pay the price and this blockage would have a deep impact on the end consumers. The exact amount and the exact effect of the blockage are not yet analyzed but the more it delays the consequences will increase.
Each day of delay will add more billions of dollars of losses towards the global trade and the economy.
FAQ
What country owns the Suez Canal?
The Suez Canal is operated and owned by Egypt.
What country built the Suez Canal?
In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 100 miles across the Suez.
Why did Great Britain want to control the Suez Canal?
Great Britain wanted to control the Suez canal, because it allowed them quicker access to its colonies in Asia and Africa.
When did Britain buy the Suez Canal?
In 1875 Britain bought Suez Canal from the Egyptians in £4million worth of shares.
Conclusion
However, Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority is looking forward to cooperating with the United States in efforts to refloat the container ship which has blocked the Suez Canal for the past few days. According to Arab News, the Canal revenue for Egypt was $5.6 billion in 2020.
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Package or parcel forwarding is an international shipping service that online shoppers can use when trying to buy from outside of their home country. Essentially, it allows customers to shop internationally, but enjoy a cheaper shipping experience. Forwardme.com is obsessed with providing reliable, affordable international shipping solutions and package forwarding service.
To delight their members, every time they open a box from Forwardme.com, they get treated by each package as if it was their own, while displaying their passion for service and superior global shipping expertise.
Founded in 2018, Forwardme.com is a parcel forwarding company that allows people to shop online at stores based in the United States and have their parcels delivered to wherever in the world the customer is.
A subsidiary of Global Access, the leading experts in international parcel distribution, Forwardme.com has helped thousands of people to shop in the U.S. and enjoy delivery to wherever they may be in the world. Forwardme.com offers some of the most cost-effective shipping solutions for customers who are looking to buy online – even from stores that may not necessarily offer international shipping.
With 5-start ratings on TrustPilot, Forwardme.com boasts some of the most cost-effective international shipping rates, serving to make the world a smaller (and easier) place to shop!
Forwardme.com- How It Works
Once the customer has signed up for an account on Forwardme.com, they will be assigned their own Delaware-based shipping address. This is where the first savings can be made: Delaware offers 0% sales tax, which can save shoppers up to 25% (depending on your location).
Customer’s Delaware shipping address is their own for life, whether they decide to make a one-off purchase, or if they are a frequent shopper. Once the parcel has arrived at the Forwardme.com warehouse in Delaware, customer can choose to have it sent on to them immediately – or wait and consolidate parcels before shipping them. Plus, unlike its competitors, Forwardme.com doesn’t charge any processing fees for a received package. They may order as many packages as they want without worrying about package fees and consolidate them all even for more savings!
forwardme.com | How it works
Forwardme.com offers a wide range of plans to suit any shopper’s budget, and then they can choose from multiple shipping options for most countries. As they handle thousands of packages daily, they offer discounted rates from some of the biggest names in shipping – such as DHL, FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
As Forwardme.com arranges all of their shipping, consolidation, and packaging for their customers, they don’t have to worry about any hidden costs on top of their purchase.
The customer’s free permanent U.S. street address is based in Delaware, and is their own for life. Thanks to Delaware’s 0% sales tax, this also means that they will get the best price on any products – especially during extreme sales days throughout the year, such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Concierge Service
As they serve over 200 countries, someone may find that they have some difficulties with their card being accepted via an online store. If they have any such difficulties, Forwardme.com offers a personal shopping concierge who will arrange to buy and ship the goods for them. Their online account will show them the progress of their sale, from purchase through to delivery at their home.
Being able to choose courier of choice is something that Forwardme.com has found their customers particularly appreciated. As they deal with major players in the shipping market, it means that everybody can be guaranteed the kind of care and expert delivery that they would expect from these companies.
This also means that if they have to pay any import taxes or duty, they can calculate this for their customers before their parcel leaves their facility. Arranging deliveries this way means that they can be spared any lengthy delays once their parcel has arrived in their country, or the inconvenience of having to go to the mail center.
Typically, customers enjoy the delivery of their goods between 2-5 days from when it leaves their warehouse. This cuts down on the ambiguity of estimated shipping dates, and means that they can carefully follow customers’ purchases as they deliver to their doorstep!
This applies regardless of their location and is particularly important if you’re shipping birthday presents or gift items from the US to wherever you are in the world.
Forwardme.com | Advantages
Package Consolidation
While their rates are already competitive, thanks to the ongoing relationship they have with international shippers, there are also three main ways that they can minimize their shipping rates.
Firstly, if someone would like them to resize their merchandise, Forwardme.com can help them to save up to 80%. While they make sure that all of the goods are safely and securely packed, and they can do so while reducing the volume of their packages. As many international items are priced by the volume, this can dramatically decrease the amount of money that someone is spending.
Secondly, they can repack items that may seem overly bulky or aren’t efficiently packed. Their extensive experience means that they will ensure their goods arrive undamaged, but depending on the size of the goods they can reduce the size of the delivered items.
Finally, if the member is interested in buying more than one item, they can hold their goods for up to 180 days in their warehouse. Once the customer decides to ship their parcels, they can arrange to consolidate their parcels – thereby turning plural packages into the most cost-effective and safe delivery possible.
However, all of this is done at the discretion of their customers, and the factory or manufacturer packaging will never be opened without explicit permission. Typically, when they are consolidating the packaging, they will remove the outer parcel, but leave all manufacturer packing intact.
Customers of Forwardme.com have found that they can buy from many prominent U.S. retailers, across every price point, without having to worry about whether or not the company themselves offer international shipping. As they ship large quantities of parcels abroad, Forwardme.com is able to offer impressive rates and discounts on international shipping – which are then passed on to the customer.
Saving Money is the #1 Reason Why Customers Use Forwardme.com, also they have shipped millions of packages.
Forwardme.com | Customer Panel
Forwardme.com- Cost-effective Shipping Solutions From the US
As mentioned above, Forwardme.com is proud to deliver to, virtually, anywhere in the world. Their service is available to over 200 countries, with their major delivery countries being India, Canada, Germany, UK, Saudi Arabia, Australia, UAE, Kuwait, France, Norway and Japan.
As more people choose to shop online and find themselves frustrated by the lack of options available for delivery, especially from within the U.S., Forwardme.com presents an option to people who want to shop till they drop – and still make sure they receive their parcels.
They have shipped from a huge variety of U.S. brands – from the daily stores like Amazon, Target, and Walmart, to high-end and designer clothing stores and premium electronics.
Souvik Dey
