Ahmedabad: No. 10 for Olacabs and No. 5 for TaxiForSure
Olacabs, today announced the launch of its services in the 'Manchester of India' - Ahmedabad. The announcement comes 12 days after TaxiForSure announced the commencement of its operations in the city. While Ahmedabad is the 10th city for Ola, it is the 5th city where TaxiForSure has made its services available.
Apart from Ahmedabad, Olacabs is available in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Pune, Goa, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Hyderabad. Ola was launched 3 years ago and is now present across 10 cities. The city is the fifth frontier for TaxiforSure after Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. With this launch, TaxiForSure.com definitely took a 12 days lead in introducing an end-to-end technology enabled taxi services in Ahmedabad and gave the residents of the city access to quick, convenient taxis at their fingertips.
Customers in Ahmedabad can book Olacabs/TaxiForSure cabs through their respective mobile applications, or alternately by calling them on 079-33553355(Olacabs) and 079-60601010(TaxiForSure.com) or online through their respective websites.
TaxiForSure and OlaCabs are playing their parts, but a lot about the future of ETAs in the city will be decided by time and Amdavadis . And if Uber launches anytime soon, the situation will resonate with that of the other metros.
Related read: Clash of the Titans: Ola vs. TaxiForSure vs. Uber
Plans for Ahmedabad
TaxiForSure is offering city’s residents to travel from anywhere to anywhere within Ahmedabad at a flat rate of Rs. 99 as a part of their inaugural offer.
Cabs booked through Ola in Ahmedabad will be priced at Rs 100 for the first 4 kms and Rs 12 per km thereafter, for the sedan category. Customers can also book these cabs for hour-based local and outstation rental services. Ola already has over 175 drivers signed up on their platform and plans to have around 500 cabs by the end of this year.
Founding and funding journeys
TaxiForSure was founded in 2011 by Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna. The company has secured $14 million in funding till date from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel partners, Blume Ventures and Helion Venture Partners.
Olacabs was founded merely 6 months before TaxiForSure by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, but the company has deeper pockets with a fund raise of over $66 million from Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital and Matrix Partners India.
With Uber soon launching its API, it will be interesting to see if Indian cab aggregators too follow suit.