Shuttl to raise $8 mn in Series C round

Gurugram-based Super Highway Labs, which owns intra-city bus aggregator Shuttl, is in line to raise $8.1 million in a Series C round from SIG Global India Fund I. 

The funding takes Shuttl’s valuation to $211 million, as per TechCircle estimates. 

This is part of an ongoing Series C round issued by the startup. In October last year, Shuttl raised $18 million from Tokyo headquartered Toyota Motor Corporation and Mirai Creation Fund, followed by $2.5 million funding secured from SH Fund I in December.     

In 2019, the company raised a little over $40 million in various funding rounds, regulatory filings show. Since inception, it has raised $60 million, according to VCCEdge data. The company also counts media conglomerate Bennett Coleman and Company, venture capital firm Lightspeed India Partners, Trifecta Capital, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, among its investors.  

On completion of the latest round, SIG Global India Fund I will hold a 3.82% stake in the company.   

Founded in April 2015 by Amit Singh and Deepanshu Malviya, alumni of IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur respectively, Shuttl offers on-demand bus services to daily commuters. As of October, the platform claims to operate 1,000 buses along 150 routes in Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai.  

Shuttl, which is the most well-funded startup in the sector, competes with Cityflo and EasyCommute in the shared mobility space. Chiratae Ventures-backed Cityflo, which has operations solely in Mumbai, raised $430,000 from venture capital firm India Quotient and People Group founder Anupam Mittal. Founded in 2015, Cityflo has raised $1.82 million so far, according to VCCEdge data.

Bus aggregator sector is lucrative as there is a dearth of organised players, especially in the privately-owned bus service providers space. However, despite the opportunity, legal issues, customer retention and public subsidies affect scale. 

In 2016, Mumbai-based LIMO shut shop on overall funding issues while last year Essel Group-backed Zigpo Technologies closed operations in Bengaluru and Mumbai months.