Jugnoo, the hyper-local delivery startup which has received widespread appreciation for its unique auto-rickshaw based delivery model, has acquired cab aggregator service BookMyCab, in a cash and stock deal. The financials involved in the deal have not been revealed.
Founded in 2014, Jugnoo provides hyperlocal deliveries through auto rickshaws, enables autorickshaw rides, and also provides meals on-demand. Earlier, it raised $5 million in Series A round of funding from Snow Leopard Ventures and PayTM. The company is still looking to raise another $20 million in funding.
The company claims to be completing 5,000 transactions a day in Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jaipur, and Gurgaon. It is soon going to start operations across the NCR region soon.
BookMyCab, as the name suggests, is a cab aggregator service. The company was founded three year ago, in 2012 by Avinash Gupta and has raised undisclosed amount of funding in angel round. It claims to be the only licensed cab aggregator in Mumbai as well as in Delhi, but has failed to withstand its deep-pocketed rivals Uber and Ola.
With this acquisition, Jugnoo is looking to expand its presence to cab hailing and is planning to first commence its services in Mumbai. The deal adds 2000 ‘kali peeli’ cabs to the company’s fleet, allowing it to reach 10,000 daily transactions serviced by 4000 vehicles.
All the back-end technology integration from BookMyCab to Jugnoo is expected to complete within a month. After that, the company will cease to exist as an independent entity. With this deal, Jugnoo is expecting that the revenues will increase by about 50 percent.
The hyper-local space in India is growing at a very high pace and is witnessing a lot of activities. Recently, BigBasket, one of the largest player in the Indian hyperlocal market acquired Delyver, an on-demand meal provider.
Taxi hailing market in India also has seen some pretty big deals, but at the same time, has become immensely cluttered. Ola, one of India’s biggest taxi aggregator has raised over $700 million and had acquired TaxiForSure for $200 million in March.
