By Vivek Singh Chauhan

New Delhi, Dec 5 (IANS): Amid the growth of bike taxi services in recent times, Rapido's bike taxi segment contributes 78 per cent to the overall business, the company's top executive said on Sunday.

Rapido started its journey with ride-hailing services in the bike taxi segment in India in 2015. And now, its customer base has grown to over 15 million users.

"Today, we have more than 1,500 personnel in the country and our app can be accessed in multiple cities. Our 1.5 million captains relentlessly serve customers across the country," Aravind Sanka, co-founder, Rapido, told IANS.

"At present, Rapido's bike taxi segment contributes 78 per cent to the overall business," Sanka added.

Sanka mentioned that Rapido's bike taxi segment is the most popular in the company's portfolio. And Rapido's business expansion objectives include ambitions to make its services more accessible.

"We aim to further modernise our services and make them more accessible with our business expansion plans," Sanka said.

The executive said that in the post-Covid world, the company is deploying technology to build newer models to serve its end-users and businesses.

"We are using our tech capabilities to innovate in conducting our business and reduce the pandemic's impact on the livelihood of our captains," Sanka mentioned.

"Rapido was providing delivery services to e-commerce companies before the pandemic. During the lockdowns, we accelerated our services and partnered with major online companies..." he added.

In August, the company secured $52 million in its latest round of funding to make strategic investments in cutting-edge innovations, technology, people and supply.

The company said its auto service launched in 26 cities has recorded a growth of four times and, overall, it has witnessed a strong recovery of 85 per cent as compared to pre-Covid.

"The funding worth $52 million will enable us to achieve our aim of the company's business expansion plans," Sanka noted.