'Uber for buses' start-up Cityflo receives $750,000 in seed funding

The funding was led by IDG Ventures. Cityflo intends to use the funds to expand to other cities, reports Tech in Asia

Traveling for work in India? Chances are you want to miss the bus. Thanks to overcrowding, irregular bus schedules, and traffic jams, the commute is often a rough ride and sometimes a nightmare.

Cityflo – an Uber for buses – has jumped in to sort out this mess. It arrived in Mumbai in September, offering an easy way to travel to work by allowing users to book seats on buses through an Android app. Now, it has stepped on the gas.
 

The start-up today announced $750,000 in a seed funding round – led by venture capital firm IDG Ventures – that will not only help it expand in Mumbai but also branch out to other Indian cities.
 

Jerin Venad, co-founder and CEO, said, “Urban transportation is a billion dollar problem to solve. In just nine weeks since our launch, we’ve received an overwhelming response from our customers with a customer repeat rate of over 75%.”

The fresh funds will be directed towards greater penetration in Mumbai. They also plan to expand to other cities in the next three months.
 

“While tier-one cities like Delhi have a huge population and, therefore, great potential, tier-two cities like Ahmedabad too hold a lot of promise because they simply don’t have adequate public transport. We are still evaluating the market,” Jerin told Tech in Asia.
 

Cityflo was founded in August this year by Jerin, Subhash Sundaravadivelu, Rushabh Shah, Advaith Vishwanath, Ankit Agrawal and Sankalp Kelshikar – all alumni of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology.

It has been careful to price its tickets at around Rs 3 per kilometre, comparable to the cost of local air-conditioned buses. 

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.