Chalo acquires Shuttl to foray into premium bus service

Live bus tracking app Chalo has acquired bus service provider Shuttl’s business, which catered to officegoers. Recently, Chalo announced the closing of its Series C funding of about $40 million led by Lightrock India and Filter Capital.

Shuttl operated in the major cities including Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, and Mumbai, and was fulfilling about 1,00,000 rides daily through its 2,000 buses. With the acquisition, Chalo plans to accelerate its international expansion as Shuttl already has a presence in Bangkok, and will make inroads into the Indian metro cities where Chalo has not been present so far.

“We are delighted to join hands with the Shuttl team. We have shared a common passion to solve the daily commute problem, and we have strong synergies in our values and approach. We have great respect for the team and the business they have built. Chalo and Shuttl were already the largest brands in their space. Together we now fulfil more than 25 million rides per month, and aim for international expansion along with further growth in India as well,” said Mohit Dubey, co-founder and CEO, Chalo.

Founded in 2014 by Mohit Dubey, Vinayak Bhavnani, Priya Singh, and Dhruv Chopra, Chalo,in its official statement said that the premium office bus service will continue to use the brand name ‘Shuttl’ and its current team, including key people will continue under their current roles. The Navi Mumbai-based startup claims to have 15,000 buses live on its platform and a presence in 31 cities across Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and others.