Google has joined investors backing Moving Tech, the parent firm of open-source ride-sharing app Namma Yatri in India that is eroding market share from Uber and Ola with its no-commission model.
Namma Yatri works atop of Open Network for Digital Commerce, an interoperable scheme backed by the Indian government that is aiming to democratize e-commerce in the world’s most populous nation. Namma Yatri’s app connects customers with auto-rickshaws and cab drivers without charging either party for rides. Instead, the startup collects a small monthly fee from its driver partners.
Uber and Ola, in comparison, pocket as much as 25-30% of the ride cost to drivers and have rejected joining ONDC network for their core mobility offerings. Moving Tech co-founders Magizhan Selvan and Shan M S told TechCrunch that they identified an opportunity after learning about drivers’ frustrations and realizing they were dissatisfied with their treatment in the existing system.
“There was a lack of differentiated approach,” M S said, reflecting on the decade-long unchallenged Uber and Ola duopoly in India. Moving Tech operates without customer discounts or additional driver incentives. It’s banking on success through providing a service that people find genuinely useful, he added.
Selvan, who personally drove over 500 auto-rickshaw rides to understand drivers’ challenges, said the startup’s guiding principle is to infuse empathy into its services.
Namma Yatri is operational in more than half a dozen Indian cities including Bengaluru and Hyderabad and has completed over 46 million rides since its launch in 2022, according to its public dashboard. Namma Yatri was originally incubated by Juspay, a SoftBank-backed financial services startup.
The startup also doesn’t see the need to raise a lot of capital and said it’s operationally profitable.
India has been pursuing an ambitious strategy over the past decade to digitize its economy and public services through the “India Stack” — a set of open APIs for identity, payments, and data sharing. This government-led initiative aims to create a unified digital infrastructure that can be leveraged by both public and private sectors to deliver services more efficiently and inclusively to India’s 1.4 billion citizens.
Over the past decade, India has upended mobile payments in the country with UPI, an interoperable network that now processes over 11 billion monthly transactions—surpassing the combined volume of all card companies.
Google, which has pledged to invest $10 billion in India, took part in Namma Yatri’s $11 million pre-Series A funding round. Blume Ventures and Antler co-led the investment, the Bengaluru-based startup said.
Karthik Reddy, a Partner at Blume Ventures, said Moving Tech was at the forefront of transforming mobility “with a fresh and innovative model.” He added: “We were amazed by the simplicity of what the tech and a robust product can do to solve mass mobility. We are glad to partner with an exceptional team and back their grand vision.”
Namma Yatri will deploy the fresh funds to expand its engineering and research and development teams, its founders said. It’s also seeking to expand its offerings to more types of transportations, including buses, they added.
