Exclusive: Bus aggregator Shuttl gets fresh commitments for ongoing $20 mn funding round

Shuttl, the Amazon-backed intra-city bus aggregator, is raising up to $6 million (Rs 42 crore at current exchange rate) in a funding round that is likely part of the startup’s ongoing $20 million round. The latest tranche comes a little over a month after the Gurugram-based startup raised $5 million from new and previous investors.

Super Highway Labs Pvt. Ltd, the company that owns Shuttl, will raise anywhere between $3 million and $6 million from an entity called MUGH 2 Ltd, according to filings with the corporate affairs ministry.

TechCircle could not ascertain the identity of MUGH 2 Ltd till the time of publishing this report. Shuttl founders Deepanshu Malviya and Amit Singh did not get respond to email queries till press time.

Last month, the bus aggregator fetched a post-money valuation of $150-160 million, by TechCircle’s estimates, when it closed a $5 million funding tranche led by New Atlantic Ventures. Previous investors, including Mu Sigma's former chief executive Ambiga Subramanian and Trifecta Capital, participated in the round. Earlier, in March, the bus aggregator raised a $7-8 million tranche led by Sequoia Capital India and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Shuttl

Founded in April 2015 by Singh and Malviya, alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and IIT-Kanpur, respectively, Shuttl has been raising capital consistently since last year. In July last year, it raised $11 million (Rs 75.5 crore then) in a Series B funding round led by Amazon Alexa Fund and Japan-based Dentsu Ventures. In January this year, it raised $1.3 million (around Rs 9.2 crore then) in venture debt from Trifecta Capital.

The platform provides shuttle services to office-going commuters, besides catering to corporates. In addition, it also provides vehicles for rentals, according to information available on its website. It currently operates in Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Faridabad, Noida and Pune.

In September last year, the company inked a pact with Hyderabad-based Commut to absorb its customers and driver partners.

As part of its diversification, the company is also mulling a foray into food delivery. The company’s filings with the corporate affairs ministry revealed that it has tweaked its objectives in the articles of association to enable entry into the hyperlocal food-delivery market.

According to data compiled by VCCEdge, the research platform of Mosaic Digital, the company that owns TechCircle, Shuttl posted a three-fold growth in operational revenues for the financial year 2017-18 at Rs 44.7 crore, up from Rs 14.3 crore for the previous year. The rise in operational revenues also led to a reduction in net losses at Rs 51 crore from Rs 59 crore during the period.

Recent developments in online bus aggregation

• February 2019: Media reports said that ZipGo was shutting down its Bengaluru and Mumbai operations amid a crisis at the Essel Group.
• October 2018: Bengaluru-based ZipGo acquired Pune-based bus aggregator Supreme Trans Concepts in a cash-and-stock deal.
• August 2018: ZipGo announced that it was raising Rs 300 crore (around $43.7 million then) in a Series B round of funding from Essel Group.