For over a decade, India’s start-up ecosystem followed a familiar formula. First pilot your service in a metro. When the platform sees the first rushes of growth, raise funds to expand to other cities. Once there is substantial scale in the top-10 cities, look towards the hinterland.
Rapido’s founders saw a flaw in that playbook. It was just too costly. Moreover, they realised that in a country of 1.4bn people, existing players were catering only to the top 10–20mn users, leaving the next 100–500mn without a choice. When another co-founder Pavan Guntupalli was without a job, he felt the problem of mobility first-hand. There was no convenient and affordable commuting option.
Without any blue-chip backers and little capital in hand, Rapido had to do things differently. In 2015, it started with bike taxis, not cars, and focused on smaller cities.
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