[Funding alert] Intercity transport startup gogoBus raises investment from ixigo, others

New Delhi-based smart bus startup gogoBus has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a round led by AI-based travel app ixigo.

ixigo’s investment is a part of gogoBus’s first round of funding, alongside other prominent angel investors including Rajesh Sawhney (Co-founder & CEO, Innerchef) and Abhishek Sharma (COO, Dineout). With this investment, gogoBus has launched operations on multiple routes in North India and will be expanding its product and technology team. 

Commenting on the investment, Aloke Bajpai, Co-founder & CEO, ixigo, said

“Despite buses being the most popular means of intercity transport in the country, the market is highly fragmented and non-standardised, with many pain-points worth solving in this segment. Generally, travellers end up planning a last-minute inter-city bus trip due to the lack of availability on trains and high flight fares. gogoBus allows people to do so in a smart and affordable manner.” 

Adding to this, Rajnish Kumar, Co-founder and CTO, ixigo, said, “The bus market in India is quite attractive with over five billion bus trips a year. The gogoBus team’s prior operating experience with buses, domain knowledge of travel and transportation, coupled with ixigo’s demand-side scale will help disrupt the bus travel market in a big way.”

Launched in January 2020, gogoBus is co-founded by Amit Gupta (ex-core team member at Shuttl) and Avinash Singh Bagri (ex-founder Trip Scanners). gogoBus offers standardised buses, self-operated lounge, pre-defined pickup points, and a in-house tech platform for booking, tracking and in-bus safety features. 

Amit Gupta, Co-founder, gogoBus, said,

“Our aim is to set new standards when it comes to comfort and safety in bus travel. We offer a wide range of features including customised reclinable luxury seats, GPS-enabled buses, predefined pit stops and trained, verified and uniformed drivers to give an exemplary experience to all bus travellers. Within a month of launch, gogoBus takes pride in having covered 5,00,000+ km with a 4.8 rating on Google Play Store.”