Over the past decade, the consumer base in India is moving from a price sensitive mind-set to a convenience-first mind-set. The travel industry has been no exception to this. Although many consumers are using convenient taxi service for their day to day local travel, they barely use cabs for outstation travels and have to resort to inconvenient modes.
Roder, an online marketplace of outstation cabs, founded by IIT-KGP alumni is revolutionizing travel between cities by offering cabs at half the rates than market for one-way journeys.
Launched in 2014, they are growing at tremendous pace and aim to make long distance travel affordable & accessible to everyone, startup claims. They charge commission per ride provided to the operators.
Roder is building the next-generation of intercity travel by providing on-demand and reliable transport solution for various travel needs.
Roder is a technology company with in-house developed algorithms to generate one-way fares and routing mechanisms. The underlying supply chain is scalable and enables the company to provide pickups from more than 300 locations in India.
Roder’s business idea was born out a personal bad experience by the founders themselves who had to pay double for the distance travelled, tolerate bad behaviour of drivers on multiple occasions and difficulty in booking a cab for an outstation travel. The venture kicked off as a marketplace for cabs in 2014 but the founding team realised that the real pain point is booking for outstation cabs. Thus, Roder’s outstation cab service was launched in January last year. The company today works with 2000 drivers and is present in 30 cities. Its founding team include Abhishek Negi, Ashish Rajput and Siddhant Matre.
Roder raised INR 1.6 Crores from Unicorn India Ventures, Calcutta Angel Network and angel investors, with Unicorn leading the round. The startup plans to expand to key geographies in India over the next year with increasing penetration in existing regions.
There are many users in Roder’s target customer segment who have never made an online payment using either card or netbanking. Roder’s team assists such people on regular basis and helps them make their first online transaction. The gratitude and appreciation shown by them keeps the Roder team motivated and sets eyes on future on growing the market.
When asked about the team’s unique key points, Abhishek Negi, Co-founder, Roder, said, “Building a unique business from ground up, Roder team has always believed in creating scalable solutions with the help of technology and automation. While many players entered the space afterwards and faced issues on the supply end regarding quality and reliability. From early operation days, Roder team has always focussed on partnering with owners of vehicle and conducts stringent vehicle checks and document verification.”
