Jugnoo cries foul ahead of Ola's Chandigarh launch

Accuses Ola of poaching employees and taking its employee and driver database to disrupt business in its hometown

Jugnoo, an auto-rickshaw aggregator funded by Paytm, has accused larger rival Ola of poaching employees and lifting its employee and driver database in Chandigarh.

Ola is planning to launch its auto-rickshaw hailing service in Chandigarh soon. However, it refused to comment on the allegations.

In a letter dated December 1, Jugnoo’s founder and chief executive Samar Singla asked his employees not to fall for rumours. “They are calling our drivers and telling them Jugnoo is shutting down… The whole ecosystem is judged on the way an Ola or a Flipkart behaves. They are burning cash and inflating numbers. Ola says its driver base doubled, my investors are telling me why I haven’t been able to double,” Singla, who was in San Francisco, said in a telephone interview. He said Jugnoo has not lodged any police complaint so far.

Jugnoo, which was founded little over a year ago, has raised about $9 million so far. The company counts Paytm, SnowLeopard and Freecharge founder Kunal Shah as its investors.

Paytm, which was the lead investor in Jugnoo’s Series B funding, declined to comment on the issue.

In November, Jugnoo claimed it had 3,300 autos on its platform across 22 cities. It has around 15,000 daily transactions and a user base of one million.

On the other hand, Ola claims to have 350,000 vehicles registered on its platform, including autos and meter taxis. Ola says it provides services in 102 cities. The company which is going head-to-head with global rival Uber says it controls 80 per cent of Indian app-based taxi hailing market. However, it doesn’t disclose the number of customers on its platform.

Uber, which was experimenting with aggregating auto-rickshaws on its platform in Delhi, recently shut the service citing issues that “needed to be resolved” before expanding the service.

App-based aggregators are getting auto-rickshaws and even metered taxies in cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata on their platform as they expand their offerings to meet growing demand.

KNOWING JUGNOO

• Jugnoo, which was founded little over a year ago, has raised close to $ 9 million so far
   
• The company counts Paytm, SnowLeopard and Freecharge founder Kunal Shah as its investors
   
• Jugnoo claimed in November that it had 3,300 autos empaneled on its platform across 22 cities
  

 

It has around 15,000 daily transactions and a user base of one million