Medilytix Bureau : India’s two dominant ride hailing platforms – Ola and Uber – are facing several smaller upstarts, category-specific business models as well as traditional players looking to break their duopoly. As urban mobility picks up after a two-year jolt from the Covid-19 pandemic, Rapido in the auto segment, Blu Smart with its electric car fleet in Delhi-NCR, blockchain-based mobility startup Drife as well as new and older firms operating specifically in the lucrative airport and inter-city services space are going all out to corner market share from the leaders.
Ride hailing in the days before the pandemic, especially in cabs, was ruled by Ola and Uber, but as the economy opened up, a bunch of companies feel the sector is ripe for disruption. Blu Smart, a Bengaluru-based all-electric cab company, is close to raising $250 million from investors including BP’s venture capital division, according to people in the know. Cofounder Tushar Garg told ET that it has 1,800 cabs in Delhi-NCR and is adding 500-700 cabs every month. Drife said on instant messaging Telegram that it had deployed about 10,000 cabs in Bengaluru as part of a pilot. The platform allows users to determine their own fares and drivers to receive payouts daily.
