Subscription-based mobility startup MyPickup winds down operations

Inflection Point Ventures (IPV)-backed MyPickup is winding down its operations after about three years after it struggled to find a product-market fit for the company’s offerings during non-peak times.

The subscription-based mobility startup offered electric auto-rickshaw services that can be subscribed on a weekly and monthly basis with zero cancellations and zero surge pricing for commuters.

MyPickup’s founder Abhijeet Jagtap took to LinkedIn to note that the company struggled to get access to patient capital—long term investment money that does not expect quick returns—that was required for the company to achieve product-market fit.

“As a founder, I underestimated the time to PMF and capital requirements for executing such an idea. Our 4 pivots also did not give the level customer experience we wanted to create,” Jagtap said in the post.

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MyPickup was launched in February 2023, and as of May this year, it was doing about 4,000 rides per month with just 19 vehicles and less than 100 subscribers with a retention of greater than 80%. However, Jagtap noted that these numbers were not attractive enough for an institutional round which was required to scale.

The company had raised a seed round of $179,000 from Inflection Point Ventures in July last year.

The news also comes at a time when the ride-hailing segment is seeing rising traction and competition. Ride-hailing aggregators like Uber and Rapido have set up alternative revenue streams for its driver parters to earn during non-peak times.

For instance, Uber is currently piloting a program which taps into its driver ecosystem to bring its usually outsourced AI data-labelling needs in-house. On the other hand, Rapido and Swiggy has partnered to utilise the bike-taxi player’s fleet to deliver Instamart orders during non-peak hours.