Bus Service Startup Cityflo Raises $7.7 Million From Lightbox Ventures And Others

• Cityflo is an app-based premium bus service provider helping company professionals in Mumbai and Thane travel to work.
• In November 2015, it had raised $750K in Seed funding from Chiratae Ventures.
• The startup will infuse this capital to expand services on current and new routes.

Thane-based app-based bus service provider Cityflo has raised Rs 57 crore (or about $7.7 million) in a Series A funding round led by Mumbai-based venture capital firm Lightbox Ventures.

Existing investor India Quotient and other angels also participated in the funding round.

While, In January 2020, The startup was in talks to raise funds from Lightbox Ventures for its Series A funding round.

Cityflo plans to use the fresh funding to expand its services on current & new routes and strengthen its position as a daily commute brand for the city’s working professionals.

The startup plans to launch a facility for bus drivers to park their vehicles and rest. It is also working towards skilling drivers concerning customer service etiquette, soft skills, and grooming, among other aspects.

In November 2015, Cityflo first raised $750K in Seed funding from Bengaluru-based Chiratae Ventures. Followed by, In June 2019, It had raised Rs 3 crore from India Quotient and other angels in a venture round.

Till date, The startup has raised over $8.5 million in a total of three funding rounds.

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"Our goal is to offer a commute option that is convenient, comfortable, and seamless. This means passengers can catch up on their work, sleep, or a Netflix series that was left in the middle. The pandemic has further underscored how essential it is to bring this kind of an offering to people," said Jerin Venad, Co-founder, Cityflo.

Thane-based Cityflo was founded in 2015 by IITians Jerin Venad, Subhash Sundaravadivelu, Rushabh Shah, Advaith Vishwanath, Ankit Agrawal, and Sankalp Kelshikar. Cityflo is an app-based platform that provides bus service to city working professionals.

Cityflo is working on asset-light model partnering with bus operators and is more than doubling in scale every year. Currently, It provides services in Mumbai, Navi-Mumbai, and Thane through its 160 premium buses.

The startup logs over 8,000 bookings daily and aims to enable over 100,000 rides daily through its premium buses to the large working population in the country.

Commenting on the investment, Siddharth Talwar, Partner, Lightbox Ventures, said, "The public transport system in India is broken and overstressed. For those who drive their cars to work, the problem is compounded by traffic and long travel time. The pandemic has made the situation more delicate with heightened apprehensions around safety, hygiene, and sanitization. This segment, therefore, has the potential to scale up and become the next big thing."

Cityflo currently competes with other app-based bus service providers such as Gurugram-based Shuttl, Bangalore-based Zipgo, among others.

According to the WTTC reports, India ranked 10th among 185 countries in terms of travel & tourism’s total contribution to GDP in 2019.

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