Taxiforsure raises first round of funding from its seed investors

Online taxi aggregator Taxiforsure has raised first round of institutional funding from its seed investors, Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures. “So far we have raised $4 million (about Rs 23 crore).

Most of the funding has come in this round,” said Aprameya Radhakrishna, the company’s cofounder. Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, both IIM-Ahmedabad graduates, launched Taxiforsure in 2011 as an online platform through which consumers can rent taxis.

The company has partnered with around 25 cab operators in Bangalore and around 15 in Delhi, including branded operators like Mega Cabs and Cell Cabs. The company, which claims to have reached operational profitability in Bangalore, has also done its own branding on about 550 cabs that are operated by small local operators. The past couple of years has seen the launch of a number of online and mobile based taxi booking services.

Taxiforsure’s primary competition is Ola Cabs, another taxi aggregator founded in 2011. The company, which has raised funding from Tiger Global, has operaoperations in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.

Like Taxiforsure, Ola too focuses on point-to-point trips, half-day and full-day packages and outstation trips. On the other hand, Savaari, another online aggregator, primarily focuses on outstation trips and multiple-hours packages. The company had also raised funding last year, from Inventus Capital Partners. Taxiforsure, said co-founder Raghunandan, clocks around 2000 bookings per day across Bangalore and Delhi.

The company, which launched its Delhi operations in March, claims to be growing 40% month-on-month. The firm now intends to expand to 15 locations by 2015, like Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Jaipur.