Aditya Vuchi's new startup to build community hubs for gig workers in India

The venture will begin with a Hyderabad centre offering rest areas, affordable food, EV charging, healthcare and other essential services for verified gig workers

Aditya Vuchi, entrepreneur-turned-investor and founder of investment platform VC Mint, is planning to launch a fresh venture aimed at addressing the challenges faced by the country’s gig workforce. The startup’s name will be announced closer to launch.

 

The brick-and-mortar startup, which is set to debut with its first centre in Hyderabad in the coming weeks, will build physical community hubs where gig workers can access clean restrooms, resting spaces, affordable food, EV charging, mobile charging and repair services, and primary healthcare facilities.

 

According to Vuchi, delivery workers represent an underserved consumer segment rather than a welfare category. "We believe gig workers are a consumer class, not a welfare class. They earn respectable incomes and deserve services built for them, rather than charity," he told Business Standard.

 

 

Vuchi said the initiative follows a survey of over 2,700 gig workers conducted by VC Mint, which identified lack of access to clean restrooms and safe places to rest between jobs as the biggest pain points. Nearly all respondents cited the absence of clean washrooms, while women delivery workers also highlighted the lack of safe spaces during breaks as a key obstacle, he said.

 

The physical centres will operate on a monthly subscription model, where access would be limited to verified active gig workers and platform verification. While Vuchi declined to disclose subscription pricing, he said the services would be designed to remain affordable for workers earning around ₹25,000-30,000 a month. Besides Hyderabad, the company has not yet identified its next expansion market. 

 

The upcoming venture has earmarked about $2 million in capital for the first phase, funded through VC Mint, the investment vehicle that has deployed over ₹45 crore across 45-50 startups. Going forward, the startup will also raise funds from venture capital investors. 

 

When asked how will this be different from the rest rooms created by platforms and ecommerce players, Vuchi said: "All of the other big platforms which say we have rest stops, essentially what they're doing is repurposing either their parcel pickup centres, or putting up small little kiosks on one side of the street, and say that this is a rest stop, but that doesn't allow true downtime for these gig workers."

 

Rather than expanding rapidly across cities, Vuchi said the company plans to build dense clusters of centres within Hyderabad before entering other markets. "We learned from previous ventures that density matters. We'd rather have multiple centres within a city so that a gig worker is never more than five to seven minutes away from one."

 

Vuchi mentioned that the first facility is being developed as a pilot to test which services see the highest adoption before the model is scaled. Besides cafeterias and rest areas, the centres will house doctors, EV charging infrastructure, mobile repair shops and spaces where workers can simply spend time without the pressure of making purchases. 

 

The company is also in discussions with ecosystem partners, including EV mobility firm Yulu, for charging infrastructure. 

 

Unlike several government and platform-led welfare initiatives, Vuchi said the business is intentionally being built as a commercially sustainable enterprise. "Welfare programmes depend on someone else's goodwill. We think this has to be a financially viable business if it has to scale across India."