redBus raises $6.5 million in Series-C funding

Pilani Soft Labs, the parent company that owns the redBus brand, raised $6.5 million in Series-C funding recently. This funding was led by Helion Venture and participated in by the existing investors Seedfund and Inventus. The company will use the funds for footprint expansion and increasing penetration in its current markets.redBus, after having recently crossed 3.5 million passenger journeys and clocking over Rs. 120 crores in gross bookings, is looking at adding customers at a rapid pace in the coming years. The company recently got awarded the country’s fastest growing company with a growth rate of ~4800% till 2010.

Phanindra Sama, CEO and Co-founder-redBus, said “We are happy to raise the current series C from our existing investors. It’s highly motivating for us to get backed by all our 3 existing investors. At this stage of our journey, our business is strengthened by the network effect. It’s encouraging for us to see Government participation on our platform. Recently the Goa Government Transport Corporation adopted our technology. With the latest fund raised we plan to strengthen our capacity to serve the increasing business.

Charan Padmaraju, CTO and Co-founder-redBus, added “We have been at the forefront of technology innovation and have been one of the early adopters of cloud computing in Asia. 100% of our servers run out of cloud and our platform is extremely scalable. We look forward to continuing our exponential growth.”

Ashish Gupta, Partner-Helion Venture, commented, “It is a privilege to be an investor in redBus. While the bus market is attractive, the quality of the team is even more compelling. They have solved a hard problem grounds up, institutionalized a culture that engenders ethics alongside success, and have achieved scale in a fragmented space.”

Parag Dhol, Director-Inventus, said, “redBus has grown considerably since Inventus’ initial investment in June 2009. The strong value proposition, to both bus operators and consumers, combined with commendable execution by the team has set the stage for creation of a significant enterprise. Inventus is happy to participate in this financing round to provide further impetus to redBus’ growth.”

Bharati Jacob, Partner-Seedfund, said, “We are excited about the potential that redBus represents and the team that has been executing extraordinarily. We are very happy to continue to support the team and their vision.”

About Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd

Pilani Soft Labs Pvt Ltd owns 3 brands: redBus - the company’s bus ticketing brand; BOSS – the company’s SaaS product that is used by bus operators for their inventory management, and; SeatSeller – the company’s bus inventory distribution platform that is used by travel agents interested in selling bus tickets.

redBus retails bus tickets on the web (www.redBus.in), through its call centers (394-12345) and through its partner outlets. It pioneered bus tickets aggregation and retailing through these channels in late 2006 and is the largest player in the market, having served more than 3.5 million passenger journeys. In its efforts to make bus travel easy, it has services such as paperless ticketing with its mTicket service, multiple seat comparison and pictures and videos of various bus types that aid travelers in planning their journeys better.

The company recently commenced reservation services for the Delhi Airport buses and plans to add airport bus services of other cities to its offering soon.

We at YourStory.in congratulate the entire team at redBus and hope that this association brings immense value to both redBus and Helion Ventures!