India-based travel app RailYatri has landed Rs 100 core (about $13.8 million) as it seeks to grow its IntrCity SmartBus network.
The round was led by Infosys Co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, with participation by Omidyar Network and Blume Ventures.
“It gives us great joy to announce that we have just closed our funding round with Nandan Nilekani and Samsung Venture Investment coming on board as a strategic investor,” the company tweeted.
“We now intend to dominate the inter-city mobility space.”
RailYatri, which was originally created in 2014 as a crowdsourced platform to simplify rail travel, expanded to bus transportation with the launch of IntrCity in 2019.
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In addition to fitting each bus with a washroom, the company integrates GPS and AI-enabled software to ensure driver safety.
Funds will be used to enhance technology and expand its IntrCity fleet from 84 to 300 in the next few months, with a goal of 2,000 by 2022.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, RailYatri co-founder and CEO Manish Rathi says that both Nandan and Samsung have been interested in solving a problem that has a country-wide impact.
“It has always been that excitement about how a travel problem across India gets simplified on a national level,” says Rathi.