Only in Bengaluru: Techie realises his neighbour is the founder of Rapido. Then…

A Bengaluru man shared screenshots of his conversation with the founder of Rapido

A LinkedIn user named Akashlal Bathe was left surprised after discovering his neighbour was one of the co-founders of Rapido. The realisation came about in the unlikeliest of ways, when the Rapido founder sent a message on his neighbourhood WhatsApp group to request a ladder.

Rapido is a bike taxi aggregator and logistics service provider founded by Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli and SR Rishikesh in 2015. It is not clear which of three sent the message requesting the ladder, but the request received a response from Bathe, who was also part of the WhatsApp group.

Akashlal Bathe, a software engineer, was surprised to see his neighbour’s WhatsApp status (which read “Rapido”) and his profile picture, and decided to message him privately. “What biz are you in?” he asked, to which his neighbour responded saying he wanted a ladder for “AC fitting.”

“No. I meant are you into photography or something? Looking at your dp,” Bathe explained. When the man on the other end politely said he wasn’t into photography or podcasting, Bathe proceeded to ask him about his WhatsApp status.

“What’s with Rapido?” he asked. Realisation dawned only when he Googled his neighbour’s name and realised he was one of the founders of the firm.

Meanwhile, the neighbour too responded to his query. “I am founder of Rapido,” he wrote, according to screenshots of the exchange which Bathe later shared on LinkedIn.

Bathe, clearly surprised, informed the Rapido founder that he would be posting the exchange on LinkedIn. He also praised the company, saying “Great service. Kaafi baar kaam aaya hai Rapido (Rapido has been very helpful several times).”

“Happens only in #Bangalore,” he wrote while sharing the screenshots on LinkedIn.

His LinkedIn post has gone viral with over 12,000 ‘likes’ and has been inundated with comments from people asking for the phone number of the Rapido founder.