Motorbike taxi startup Baxi to start delivery app in partnership with Patanjali

He added that new investors who participated in the round were Ashish Chhaparwal, founder of US-based children transportation firm KidzJet, Mohit Khurana and Deekshant Sahrawat, co-founders of Roots Education and Ramesh Awtaney, founder and chairman of information technology firm ISON Technologies.

According to Johri, the startup will use the capital to launch its hyperlocal ordering app, which will deliver groceries, pharmaceuticals, health supplements, personal care products, food and dairy products to customers.

He confirmed that they have partnered with FMCG manufacturer Patanjali for the hyperlocal delivery segment. As part of the tie-up, bikes will be provided by Baxi to Patanjali employees at all its retail outlets. Orders can be placed by customers from Patanjali stores through the Baxi app.

Started in 2014 by Johri and Manu Rana, the company last raised funds in November 2015 in which they secured $1.4 million in seed funding from a group of high-net-worth individuals. The services are provided in parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

In the past two years, dozens of bike taxi startups have been launched across NCR. However, many of them had to shut due to lack of funding, operational challenges and regulatory hurdles. In January, Delhi-NCR-based Bikxie had raised Rs 2 crore ($315,200) from GEMs Partners, a micro venture capital fund, and Sachin Khandelwal, the former chief executive and managing director at non-banking finance company Magma Fincorp.