Jugnoo secures $10 M fresh round from Paytm, Snow Leopard and Rocketship.vc

Autorickshaw hailing platform Jugnoo has secured $10 million funding in Series B round from Paytm, Snow leopard and Rocketship.vc. The company will deploy the funds to on-board drivers and extend service to other cities. Currently, Jugnoo claims to have a network of 10,000 auto-rickshaw drivers across India that is growing at a steady rate across the country.

This round is the third tranche of its Series B round financing. Earlier, it raised $2.5 million in January this year and $3 million in November last year.

Speaking about investment, Samar Singla, CEO and Co-founder, Jugnoo, commented,

We have been receiving a phenomenal response from drivers who are now readily adopting technology as a means of increasing their daily earnings. We will invest these funds in improving our driver efficiency and increasing our numbers in cities where we are currently in the growing phase.

Jugnoo is using auto-rickshaws to revolutionize hyperlocal commerce. Besides offering on-demand auto-rickshaw, it enables B2B hyperlocal deliveries like food, grocery, and veggies among others via its own network of auto-rickshaws.

Earlier, the company also claimed to acquire Mumbai based taxi hailing platform BookMyCab and Pune based autorickshaw startup Autowale. However, both deals have fallen through for unknown reasons.

Kiran Vasireddy, Senior Vice President, Paytm, believes that Jugnoo has showcased tremendous potential towards creating disruption in the Indian public transportation eco-system. He said,

Their Auto hailing service has picked up phenomenally well and they are witnessing incredible growth MoM basis.

in 2015, Jugnoo acquired Yelo­, a peer-to-peer mobile platform, to tap the potential of content discovery, and Chandigarh-based Bistro. Bistro provides DIY platform for broadcasting offers and managing loyalty for any restaurant or a chain of restaurants.

Jugnoo also forayed into the global market and rolled out its service in the Philippines through a joint venture.

Though Jugnoo didn’t have much competition till recently, the launch of several bike taxi services in Gurgaon is posing significant competition to the company. The Chandigarh-based venture has been trying to raise a big round from quite some time. However, the company has not been able to convince other investors (except existing investors) to come on board.

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