Ride-hailing startup Rapido has joined the unicorn club after raising around $120 million (Rs 1,000 crore) in its latest Series E funding round led by its existing investor WestBridge Capital, showed filings sourced from Registrar of Companies (RoC).
Rapido will likely expand its auto and cab offerings in newer cities across India.
"The new funding will help them develop their tech stack and expand in the newer markets which was previously dominated by Ola and Uber," said a venture capital investor requesting anonymity.
A unicorn means a privately owned startup valued at over $1 billion. Rapido closely competes with players like Ola, Uber and Namma Yatri.
The Hyderabad-based firm was founded in 2015 by Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and Rishikesh SR. Rapido, which started off as an auto and bike taxi aggregator, has also ventured into cabs.
On October 27th, Rapido forayed into the hyper-local parcel delivery and cab service market as it looks to expand its offerings from auto and bike taxi services.
In April of 2022, Rapido raised $180 million in a Series D round led by foodtech major Swiggy and joined by TVS Motor Company and existing investors Westbridge, Shell Ventures, and Nexus Ventures.
After a dull 2022 and 2023, India has started witnessing a rise in startups getting into the unicorn club.
On July 29th, Moneycontrol reported that Raise Financial Services, the company that runs the investing and trading app Dhan, is in early-stage talks to raise around $100 million in a fresh round which will catapult the company’s valuation to $1.2-1.5 billion and earn it a place in the coveted unicorn club.
Porter a tech-enabled logistics company which offers a variety of intracity and intercity delivery services recently closed a friends and family round at a valuation of $1 billion.
Startups like Bhavish Aggarwal's Krutrim and Perfios are also the firms to reach unicorn status this year.
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