Visakhapatnam :
Having been forced to shell out higher fares on buses, especially during weekends and holidays between Hyderabad and Vizag, a group of youngsters decided to launch an online portal – CoYatri – to facilitate inter-city carpooling.
While the company is currently based out of Hyderabad due to the geographical advantage that it offers, CoYatri is soon planning to open an office in Vizag due to the increasing demand from the city. While the founder of the company Pradeep Reddy Enugala hails from Hyderabad, its other co-founders, lead technology Krishna Vedula and lead business development Bhaskar Saragadam, hail from Visakhapatnam.
“People frequently face the problem of bus fares skyrocketing especially during weekends. A ticket, which usually goes between Rs 600-800, shoots up to Rs 1400 during weekends. And if there is a three-day holiday it even goes up to Rs 1700-2000 per ticket,” said founder of CoYatri, Pradeep Reddy Enugala.
“I realised that people are having to shell out more for buses and at the same time are not getting trains because of the huge demand. On the other hand, there are a large number of people who have cars, but are not using them because of high costs. So, if we can properly organise a community, then a car owner, by opting for inter-city carpooling, can easily accommodate two to three people or more and not only make up his travel expenses but also make a profit by travelling in his car,” he added.
So far, CoYatri has more than 5,000 registered users and has been able to offer around 600 plus rides and around 1800 people have been able to travel using the portal. “It is roughly around Rs 9 lakh worth of seats that we have been able to garner during the last 10 months,” Enugala added. Having launched the company in October end last year, Enugala said the target is to reach a position of over one million customers in the next 12 months.
Explaining the revenue model, CoYatri co-founder and lead business development Bhaskar Saragadam said, “As of now we are not charging any fee to users as we want the carpooling culture to gain traction in India. We will charge a percentage of the ride fare once the inter-city carpooling culture becomes popular.”
As of now, a majority of the inter-city rides registered on the website are from AP and Telangana with the more popular routes being from Hyderabad to Vizag, Bengaluru, Chennai, Vijayawada and even Rajahmundry, Anantapur and Kadapa.
Explaining the security safeguards, co-founder and lead technology Krishna Vedula said, “We don’t provide any security per se, but we will make sure that the person who is travelling is genuine and an identified person. We collect original photograph along with their email ID, mobile number and government approved ID card. We activate their profile by verifying the company email and mobile and also check the car numbers by crosschecking with the AP government. If a customer is not comfortable travelling at the last moment, they can still pull out of the ride.”
CoYatri has already received a seed funding of Rs 60 lakh from Sudheer Gaddam, who is president of US IT company Neumeric Technologies Corporation, and is now looking for investments to the tune of USD 1 million in order to promote the portal aggressively in the coming days.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City/ by Manish / August 20th, 2015