Work took Raghunandan and Aprameya Radhakrishna around the country, and frequent delays on these trips due to unreliable cab services set them thinking.

They arrived at an answer through ‘TaxiForSure’. In a market flooded with taxi operators, ‘reliability’ is the USP of this company which the duo, alumni of IIM -A, started in June 2011. Today, in Bangalore, if you book a taxi through TaxiForSure, you can rest assured that the cab will arrive.

These first time entrepreneurs don’t have a fleet of taxis. They instead network with existing taxi operators both in the organised and unorganised segments. So, when you call TaxiForSure @ 60601010 or hit their Web site asking for a cab, you could end up getting a Meru, an EasyCab, or a owner-driver vehicle.

This way, the start-up has access to 900-1,000 cabs in the organised segment and another 250 in the unorganised segment.

“Similar to a Makemytrip or a redBus, we have access to all players, branded and local. So if you call TaxiForSure, whichever cab is available in your vicinity will immediately respond. At the same time, we are different from a Makemytrip in one respect. While they offer you the various choices and also the prices, we don’t interfere with the fares. That’s left to the cab operator and you. We are just a marketplace,” elaborates Raghunandan.

Novel idea

Instead of charging the customers, they take a share from the fare paid by the customer referred by them, to the operator. From the bigger, organised operators, they get a 7-10 per cent share. From the smaller ones, they earn around 20 per cent. This business model, according to them, has the added advantage of being asset-light.

They don’t have to invest in a fleet of cars. The other costs would only be on setting up a call centre to coordinate with drivers and customers and the technology to connect them.

It was a novel idea no doubt. But how did they convince the operators, who had their own infrastructure to get customers, to tie up with them? “On their part, they had nothing to lose. Only if we gave them customers, did they have to pay us anything. Unlike a Meru or a Cel Cabs, for the smaller guys who did not have too much business this was a good opportunity to get customers,” reasons Aprameya.

“Today, for the small guys who have tied up with us, we perhaps drive 90-95 per cent of their business. The more the business we give, the more the dependency. Such unorganised players are the ones who form bulk of the market,” he adds, hinting at the revenue potential that TaxiForSure has, as the word spreads. If it’s the operator at one end, it’s the customer at the other. The venture’s first few customers were those who knew them through some friend or the other. Their first set of unknown customers came from intranet posts in companies by employees who had used their service. Later, Facebook ads and radio campaigns widened their reach.

Operators and drivers chipped in and helped spread the word too. Those who got plenty of business from them, did not mind painting TaxiForSure advertisements in their vehicles either. A year and a half since inception and a round of venture capital funding later, they are not comfortable revealing how many customers/calls they get per day. But it is growing at 40-50 per cent month-on-month, they say. While the company has just inaugurated its office in Delhi, it plans to launch in Mumbai shortly.

Venture funding

The venture funding in May 2012 from Accel, Helion and Blume has brought much to the table for TaxiForSure.

For one, Helion has invested in both Makemytrip and redBus, which run somewhat similar businesses as TaxiForSure.

Two, the investors have encouraged the team to put money in technology early on – they are working on developing a smart-phone based application to reach the customer with minimum downtime.

Three, the connection helped them hire a veteran in the industry as their COO. Besides, these venture capitalists put them on to the founders of redBus and Flipkart, from whom Raghunandan and Aprameya have leant a lot.

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