Stellaris, Fosun back ride sharing app Loca Rides

Last-mile connectivity provider Loca Rides has raised an undisclosed sum in a funding round led by Stellaris Venture Partners and Fosun RZ Capital, the venture capital arm of Chinese conglomerate Fosun International. The stage of investment was not disclosed.

Individual investors Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder of Taxiforsure, Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder of Vokal and Rohit M A, co-founder of Cloud Nine, also participated in the round, Loca Rides said in a statement.

Loca Rides will use the funds to expand its presence in all major metro stations in Bengaluru and further build its tech and operations teams. It plans to expand to multiple cities, including New Delhi, by early next year, the statement added.

Founded in April 2019 by Gautam Patil and Krishnakumar Ramachandran, Loca Rides is a ride-sharing app for short rides.  

The motorised micro-mobility market in India is approximately 100 million trips per day but is largely unreliable, the company claims. 

Loca currently operates at four metro stations in Bengaluru. It claims to offer comfortable air-conditioned shared rides at less than the price of an auto-rickshaw ride.

Prior to founding Loca Rides, Gautam served as a principal with the Boston Consulting Group while Krishna had built technology products at Amazon, LinkedIn and Microsoft. 

“Loca offers unmatched convenience and speed to metro users, and as a result, a full 40% of their users take a ride daily, on average,” said Ritesh Banglani, partner at Stellaris.

The company is estimated to have raised around $5 million in the current round, Mint has reported citing sources. Queries from TechCircle went unanswered at the time of publishing this report.

Stellaris is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in seed and Series A rounds of Indian technology companies, whereas Fosun RZ Capital is the venture capital arm of Shanghai-based conglomerate Fosun International and does seed-to-IPO investments. 

In April, the parent of the online scooter rental platform Vogo had raised $7 million in a funding round led by ride-hailing major Ola. Venture capital firms Stellaris Ventures and Matrix Partners also participated in the round.

Loca Rides competes with the likes of Uber, Ola, Lyft, Zimride, Juno, among others, in this segment.