We all have heard of the ‘new normal’ during the pandemic that emphasizes the 360 degrees change in everything we do. This applies to traveling as well. Travelling will no longer be the same as before.
While people have again started to travel to different cities for work and other purposes, there has been a change in how people wish to travel. This could be seen as a ‘minimal touch travel.’ It means traveling with ease without any physical hassles.
In such scenarios, buses are the first means of mobility that is associated with push and rush. Intercity mobility startup, Zingbus wishes to change this concept once and for all. To turn around the conventional traveling mode with its data-based operations and improved logistical technology, Zingbus has managed to raise 44.6 Crores by Infoedge Ventures, and others.
While this funding has been impressive for the startup, there are good reasons to have such financial backing for their company:
- The need to raise the capital lies in its strategy to scale up the production and its operations to a higher level.
- Improve the technology to have a smoother travel experience for the users
- Expand the operations to other new geographical locations in India
There were other participants in this line of investors who believed in the vision and mission of Zingbus and trusted their path to progress. These include participation from other investment companies of Silicon Valley such as Funders Club, Pioneer Fund, Anim Fund (Founders Fund Scout), Locus Ventures, and Liquid 2 Ventures.
The existing investors such as Advantedge Technology Fund, 9 Unicorns, and Venture Catalyst have also not let go of the opportunity to invest their share of the money. Y Combinator has also backed the start-up with its determined foresight.
The icing on the cake in their financial support is the strong backing by value-adding angels such as NFL fame Joe Montana, Alan Rutledge, John Jersin, Ankur Nagpal, Vinod Gupta, Ben McCan, and Harry Robertson among others.
The foundation of the concept of Zingbus is credited to Prashant Kumar, Mratunjay, and Ravi Kumar Verma who decided to establish this company in 2019. This New Delhi-based start-up delivers the service of intercity travel to its customers.
With the humungous support, the basis on which Zingbus promotes its venture is the need to have an affordable, reliable, and best means of transport that is available to the common man.
While this may be a common goal of many other competitors such as Delhi-NCR-based Ixigo, IntrCity, and YoloBus, the game-changer strategy that is being adopted by Zingbus is to handle the demand and supply management of the traditional fleet of buses that has been struggling to operationalize.
This also includes the audits and boarding management with minimum manpower and a target to run 250+ buses by the end of the year. The reason for an impressive amount of financial investment is the lean towards the change in trends where there is more demand for intercity bus travel than ever before.
People with a setback of income have mostly preferred to travel by bus which makes up for the lack of availability and affordability of train and plane rides.
From the customer’s point of view, Zingbus wants to promote traveling by bus as an attractive and better mode of traveling. This has been proved with Zingbus being one of the popular bus travel brands in India connecting more than 100 cities and towns in the country. Such confidence is achieved with their unique combination
of tech and logistic expertise along with the efficient use of capital.
Hence, Zingbus is now all ready to leverage the funding to expand the modern bus ride experience to the commuters as well as help the bus fleets optimize earnings with their operations using software and data as well as adapting to the new safety and hygiene protocols.
