Even though Uber and Ola have made significant inroads into India’s local transportation system, the humble auto-rickshaw continues to be the most favoured personal public mover in the country. Looking to tap on that large segment is a mobile app called Jugnoo, which just grabbed $5 Million from Snow Leopard and several others to let you book an auto or get meal/groceries delivered by that same iconic autorickshaw.
Apart from Snow leopard, the Series A round also saw participation from mobile commerce firm Paytm and several returning investors from its angel round.
Jugnoo is a hyperlocal logistics solution, to provide everything on-demand using auto rickshaws as a logistics engine, for both A2B transport and Value Added Deliveries. In simple terms, Jugnoo taps into all three segments, namely Hyperlocal delivery, food delivery and auto booking with its business operations, all by using a smartphone app and auto-rickshaws.
Looking at how investors have been pouring money into India’s online delivery segment, on-demand delivery market is set to bring the next big disruption in the e-commerce segment. Comprising an all ex-IITian team, and headed by CEO and Founder Samar Singla, Jugnoo aims to be the one heading that disruption.
Currently, Jugnoo has its offerings in mid Tier-1 cities namely Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jaipur and plans to expand its services to Gurgaon. Jugnoo claims to have over 150,000 users using its app to order as many as 3,000 transactions each day, making about $4,000 in daily revenue.
Jugnoo currently offers three variants of its service.
The first being Jugnoo, which is your general auto booking app. Similar to Ola and Uber, Jugnoo too uses heat maps to strike a balance between supply and demand of autos. And while there are obviously Uber and Ola offering auto-booking, what sets Jugnoo apart is its handling of a very troublesome, food delivery market.
Jugnoo offers a specialised meal delivery service called Jugnoo Meals, that delivers fresh, home-cooked affordable meals at your doorstep. That, makes a huge differentiating impact, considering the fact that most Indians use auto rickshaws for grocery purchase, or going around at nearby eating joints to get food packed.
Lastly, Jugnoo’s Fatafat service lets users order anything from anywhere for free. It is a highly convenient, efficient substitute to the entire process of you standing on the side-roads and waving hand to get an auto to a local kirana store. Logistics currently accounts for 30 percent of the company’s transactions, but its goal is to boost that number to 50 percent.
Auto booking is a segment which has also attracted a lot of attention after Ola had introduced auto booking on its platform. Similarly, Uber continued to show how important the Indian market is for the company, by launching a tailor-made auto-booking service, currently operational in New Delhi.
Samar Singla, CEO at Jugnoo said-
There are ten times more auto rickshaws in India so we can handle supply and demand much better. People who want the quickest and cheapest means to get from point A to point B will choose us, but if a person wants an air-conditioned car he or she will probably go for an Uber.
Jugnoo says that this fresh capital will be used in an aggressive expansion of their business. Singla added that Jugnoo’s goal is to provide its merchants with communication tools, seamless payments, and delivery logistics, all of which the company plans to build itself, rather than looking for acquisitions.
