Gurugram-based online bus aggregator Shuttl said Tuesday it has clocked a revenue of more than USD 14 million in financial year 2019 compared to USD 6.3 million in revenues last financial year, local newspaper Mint reported.
In fiscal 2018, Shuttl reported a loss of USD 7.1 million, but did not release the profit and loss figure for this financial year.
Currently, the app-based startup runs its own fleet of bus services across six Indian cities,including Delhi, and its satellite cities, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai. It claims to have a combined daily ridership of 100,000 rides across these metro cities. Its network of 1,800 air-conditioned buses cover 350 shuttle routes across India having serviced 33 million rides till date. The company claims it has been able to convert 57% of its customers who earlier used to travel by their four-wheelers into bus commuters.
Shuttl app allows people to find out buses going through a specific route, select the boarding and drop points, reserve seats according to the timings they prefer, book passes, track the buses in real-time, and pay online. The buses have been enabled with real-time GPS tracking and advanced safety parameters. Shuttl’s bus-pooling service is primarily used by working professionals.
In September this year, Shuttl set up its first research and development hub in Bengaluru that is positioned as its prime nodal centre for innovation. It said it would hire over 100 employees for the R&D center that would be used to enhance its capabilities around geographic information systems, global positioning systems, machine learning, data warehousing, augmented reality, and computer vision.
To monetize from its captive customer base and also seeking to improve on customer requirements, Shuttl is offering meals for its Delhi users, especially to commuters who travel long distances. It is looking forward to expand services as well which will include selling daily essentials on its buses like bread, butter, curd, eggs, and milk.
The company has raised USD 50 million since it commenced operations in 2015. Founded by IITians Amit Singh, and Deepanshu Malviyia, Shuttl has raised money from investors including Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Amazon India, and Dentsu Ventures. In July 2018, Shuttl, owned by Super Highway Labs, had raised USD 11 million in a funding exercise led by Amazon India, Amazon Alexa Fund, and Dentsu Ventures. This was followed by USD 2.4 million debt funding round from Trifecta Capital.
According to industry surveys, about 150,000 private buses are operational in India carrying nearly 70 million people daily.