BookMyCab set to raise funding from YourNest Angel Fund

Online (and on phone) cab booking service BookMyCab, run by the startup LiveMinds Solutions Pvt Ltd, is all set to raise angel funding from YourNest Angel Fund. This will be the fund's third investment after backing video analytics startup Proof of Performance and hyper-local online marketplace for kids, Mycity4kids. Although the deal is not closed yet, sources close to the development have told Techcircle.in that it is in the final stage.

When contacted, YourNest founders declined to comment on the funding. A sector-agnostic early-stage fund, YourNest fund typically invests around Rs 3-5 crore in startups.

BookMyCab is a taxi-booking service provider operating in Mumbai and enables users to book the traditional black-and-yellow cabs as well as air-conditioned cool cabs. Essentially, it is an aggregator with an asset-light model instead of owning a fleet of cabs. We browsed through the company's website for more details but many of its pages appeared inactive.

Going by the current scenario, BookMyCab operates in an extremely competitive market as quite a few cab services are now available in Mumbai. The company is competing with players like Olacabs, Meru, MegaCabs.com, Easycabs.com and many more.

Those offering aggregation services are, in effect, banking on their networks and linking those with technology back-ends to ensure a cab on short notice – a key pain point in Mumbai. While the black-and-yellow cabs as well as cool cabs (they sport blue colour) are omnipresent in the city and can be hailed on the road, BookMyCab is looking to bring such services into the organised booking fold. The USP is simple "these cabs are cheaper than the private cab services run by most other competitors of BookMyCab, which is a strong value proposition. But its success will depend on execution and ensuring that a customer gets a cab whenever he/she requires it.

We have also noticed that another online cab booking service provider sports a similar name; it is BookMyCab, to be specific. This may pose some problem in terms of building a brand presence besides possible future expansion in Delhi-NCR (the other firm sporting a similar domain name operates in Delhi).

Investor interest in car rental companies is on the rise and many such startups got funding as well. For instance, Mumbai-based Olacabs recently raised around $3 million in a Series A round of funding from the prolific VC fund Tiger Global. Bangalore-based Taxiguide.com also raised angel funding while Taxiforsure.com got Series A funding from seasoned investors like Accel, Helion and Blume Ventures.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)