Employee transportation firm MoveInSync raises Series B funding

Office commute automation platform MoveInSync has raised $8 million (Rs 52 crore) in a Series B round of funding led by homegrown venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners, a company statement said.

Existing investors Inventus Capital Partners, Saama Capital and Qualcomm Ventures also participated in the round.

The company will use the funds to further develop its transport offerings, accelerate customer acquisition and expand to international markets, the statement added.

MoveInSync provides its services via a platform that tracks vehicles during commute in real time, records cab usage, and provides automated billing. The firm also addresses employee safety while commuting through a centralised command centre.

The company was founded in 2009 by Deepesh Agarwal, Akash Maheshwari and Anuvrata Arora, all of whom are graduates from IIT BHU. It was incubated at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Prior to setting up MoveInSync, Agarwal was an engineering manager at Motorola where he worked on intelligent transportation systems and wireless communications. Maheshwari served as a programme manager at Microsoft, where he designed features and managed teams that developed the Visual Studio Team System, Live Meeting, OneCare and Virtualization. Arora was a software development manager at Amazon India.

The firm initially started as a carpool service but later pivoted into a full-fledged employee transportation management platform.

Owned and operated by MoveInSync Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd, the company’s transport solution is being used by over 50 customers including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, and Wipro. The firm claims to have witnessed 100% year-on-year growth for four years, covering 350 million kilometres across 16 million trips spread across 173 office locations in India in 2017.

“We are very excited at the impact of our platform with our customers seeing more than 20% cost reduction within six months of implementation of our system. By leveraging MoveInSync’s transport automation solution, companies also see increased employee satisfaction and are able to address employee safety,” Agarwal said.

In its last funding round, the company had raised an undisclosed amount of venture debt investment from InnoVen Capital India in July 2015.

Previously, the company had raised $5 million (over Rs 30 crore) in Series A funding led by Inventus Capital Partners, with participation from Qualcomm Ventures and Saama Capital in August 2014.

Other players offering enterprise transportation services
Bangalore-based enterprise mobility solutions company Nivaata Systems Pvt Ltd, which operates under the brand Verayu, is MoveinSync’s direct competition in the Indian market. Verayu had received an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding led by Vamm Capital, an investment and real estate firm in Dubai, with participation from existing investor Blume Ventures.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) had announced that MyOfficeCab, one of the six startups incubated at IAMAI-sponsored Mobile10X Apps Hub, had raised seed funding in 2016.

Besides, Noida-based employee transportation services startup Cloud 1 raised an undisclosed amount of investment from JLL Technology Ventures.

In March 2015, Cubito, another venture operating in the same space, raised $160,000 in seed investment led by early-stage investor Sol Primero.