Google has invested in Moving Tech, the company behind Namma Yatri, an open-source ride-sharing app in India that competes with Uber and Ola.
Namma Yatri, operating on the government-supported Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), connects customers with auto-rickshaw and cab drivers without taking a commission from rides. Instead, drivers pay a nominal monthly subscription fee. This contrasts with Uber and Ola, which charge a 25-30% commission and have not integrated with the ONDC network.
Moving Tech’s co-founders, Magizhan Selvan and Shan M S, identified a market gap due to drivers’ dissatisfaction with the current ride-sharing ecosystem. Shan M S emphasised the need for a new approach in a market dominated by Uber and Ola, focusing on providing value without relying on customer discounts or driver incentives.
Selvan, who personally completed over 500 auto-rickshaw trips to gain insights into drivers’ challenges, emphasised that empathy is central to the startup’s ethos.
Namma Yatri is currently operational in various Indian cities, including Bengaluru and Hyderabad, and has purportedly facilitated over 46 million rides since its launch in 2022, according to the company's public dashboard. Namma Yatri was first developed by Juspay, a SoftBank-backed financial services startup, and has maintained operating profitability without requiring significant capital inputs.
India's broader digitisation programme, known as the "India Stack," has been underway for the past decade, intending to digitise the economy and public services via open APIs for identity, payments, and data sharing. The effort aims to create a unified digital infrastructure accessible to the government and the commercial sector, therefore, improving service delivery to India's large population.
No comments:
Post a Comment