Lower metro ridership not good for Rapido, says co-founder Pavan Guntupalli

Company planning expansion through MoUs with states, for clean mobility, job creation

Bengaluru: A potential decrease in ridership on the Bengaluru Metro due to fare hikes is not good for transport aggregator Rapido, co-founder Pavan Guntupalli told DH. This is because Rapido is used for last-mile connectivity, wherein people use the app to go to their destinations from the metro stations.

On the sidelines of the Invest Karnataka Global Investors Meet - 2025, Guntupalli also spoke about upcoming memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with major states, focusing on clean mobility and women's employment generation.

“The reality is Rapido is a great complement to public transportation options. People use the metro and once they get dropped off, they use Rapido to go to their final destination. So for us, metro ridership decreasing is not a great sign,” Guntupalli said.

In Delhi, Rapido has a separate option called “Bike Metro”, which they plan to launch soon in Bengaluru. 

Another issue plaguing Bengaluru is run-ins between bike taxi drivers and auto drivers, with users' experiences showing that bike taxis do not prefer to take pick ups and drops too close to popular metro stations due to harassment by auto drivers, who argue that bike taxis are illegal as per the state government.

Guntupalli said more legal clarity is helpful for bike taxis, also in terms of aiding job creation in the state. “The court has clearly given us a stay to operate, based on the provision in the Central Motor Vehicles Act for bike taxis to exist,” he added. Recently, Maharashtra also agreed to launch bike taxis, he pointed out. 

In terms of other asks from the state government following the unveiling of the new Industrial Policy, Guntupalli said that more subsidies and tax friendly policies would be welcome. “As a company, Rapido has paid Rs 400 crore as tax to the state,” he said. 

When asked about the EV push by Karnataka’s recently launched Clean Mobility Policy, Guntupalli said that Rapido’s approach is based on available charging infrastructure. 

Recently, Rapido raised Rs 250 crore from Prosus as part of their latest Series E round. The funds will be used to enter new categories and expand into 500 cities, out of which over 20 are in Karnataka. The aim is to create over 80,000 new jobs, with a key focus on women employment. 

Expansion plans also include partnerships and MoUs with states. The most recent was with that of West Bengal, with more upcoming in all the major states including Karnataka. These will focus on clean mobility and women employment, similar to the MoU with the Government of West Bengal, stated Guntupalli. 

Road policies vary from state to state, with panelists at the Global Investors Meet calling for greater consistency.“More than consistency, I would say convergence is going to happen. Cities have different challenges, geographies, demographics. So, is it going to be truly consistent? No. But will there be convergence on a few main points? I think it should be or it will be,” he said. 

Drivers have long said that they prefer models like Namma Yatri, where they do not have to pay any commission or login fees.  Guntupalli explained that Rapido works on a service as a software (SaaS) model across the country. 

“We take zero commission. However, a lot of the captains that we are working with are paying a subscription fee to just operate on a platform and access earning.” The subscription fee varies from city to city. For example, for Bengaluru, it is Rs 19 for autos and Rs 39 for cabs. 

Rapido will be launching its women only bike-taxi service in Karnataka this year, creating nearly 25,000 jobs, " Guntupalli announced at GIM.