Bike taxi startup Rapido to raise $50 mn; Paytm Mall cuts ties with parent entity

Bike-taxi startup to raise $50 million. Paytm Mall cuts ties with One97 Communications. 

Shunwei, Westbridge Capital to lead $50 mn funding in Rapido

Roppen Transportation Services. which operates bike taxi startup Rapido, is in advanced talks to close a $50 million funding round led by UK-based investment firm Westbridge Capital and China-based venture capital firm Shunwei Capital, Mint reported. 

Existing investor Nexus Venture Partners is also participating in the round. The startup will be valued at $200 million post the latest round, the report said. 

Skycatcher, AdvantEdge, Astarc Ventures and Integrated Capital are Rapido’s existing investors.

Rapido was founded in 2015 by Rishikesh S.R. Pavan Guntupalli and Aravind Sanka. It operates across 13 cities in India.

In April, TechCircle had reported that Rapido was raising up to $11.19 million from a clutch of new and existing investors. Nexus Ventures Partners was to lead the investment with an infusion of $6.53 million.

In January, it had raised $10 million in a Series A funding round, led by Hong Kong-based multi strategy private investment firm Integrated Capital.

Paytm Mall breaks ties with parent entity 

Ecommerce website Paytm Mall has cut off ties with its parent entity One97 Communications, The Economic Times reported. 

The company is rebuilding and it has no common team member across its two businesses, the report said.

In July, eBay had picked up a 5.6% stake in Paytm Mall for $160 million besides striking a commercial agreement.

Earlier this week, Paytm had adopted an online-to-offline (O2O) model to reduce logistics costs.