Making India Move Better

From initially facilitating 500 rides daily to 1.5 million rides now, Rapido's rise is a testament to its groundlevel awareness of real problems 

- Prerna Lidhoo

IN THE RULE BOOK of running a successful start-up, embracing failure will probably be amongst the top to-dos. But if, in October 2015, the founders of the Karrier—a failed logistics start-up—were told that they could reach a valuation of $820 million in 2023, they would have been incredulous. In 2015, the founders decided to pivot their one-year-old start-up to what is now known as Rapido, a ride-sharing bike-taxi platform.

How did the founders come together? High-school buddies Aravind Sanka and Pavan Guntupalli—who were working with Flipkart and Samsung, respectively, then—attended a summer programme in 2014. That is where their paths crossed with Rishikesh S.R. The trio decided to get together and start theKarrier as they realised that there was a market gap for intra-city trucks. But due to scaling and credit-availability issues, they had to pivot. This time, Bengaluru’s traffic situation provided the inspiration. They realised that people wanted an affordable daily commute. That turned out to be the right call.