Bus ticketing startup Chalo acquires Covid-hit Shuttl in all-cash deal

Chalo and Shuttl have a presence in 33 cities across 12 Indian states including Delhi NCR, Karnataka, Kerala and others

Online bus ticketing startup Chalo has acquired Shuttl, a bus aggregator for office commute, in an all-cash deal. The amount was not disclosed.

While Chalo has raised $47 million from investors like Lightrock India, Waterbridge and Filter Capital, Shuttl has attracted $122 million till date from the likes of Amazon, Sequoia and Lightspeed India, according to data from Crunchbase.

Prior to Covid-19, Shuttl had a presence in large Indian metros like Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, and Mumbai, and international cities like Bangkok, and was fulfilling about 100,000 rides daily through its 2,000 buses.

But as demand for bul travel fell off the cliff amid Covid lockdowns last year, the company’s operations came to a standstill. Although it tried to put its act together, the second wave came as a lasting blow.

In June this year, Shuttl cofounder Amit Singh had tweeted: We've taken a tough but practical call. A call that best takes care of the interest of our team, customers, partners, shareholders. The call is to join forces with another entity. An entity that's less impacted by Covid & can better tide over these challenging times.

The acquisition news comes days after Chalo’s announcement of its Series C funding of about $40 million. It offers Chalo key strategic gains -- it will accelerate the company’s plans for international expansion as Shuttl already has a presence in Bangkok, and give it a presence in large Indian metro cities.

Mohit Dubey, co-founder and CEO, Chalo, said: “Chalo and Shuttl were already the largest brands in their space. Together we now fulfil more than 25 million rides per month, and aim for international expansion along with further growth in India as well.”

Amit Singh, co-founder and CEO of Shuttl, said: “We started out to take the pain away from daily commuters. In the process we ended up building a category, and inspiring others from different parts of the world to do the same. It's a bittersweet moment for us. We believe the team and legacy of Shuttl will thrive equally well in the new set-up.”

The acquired bus service will continue to use the brand name ‘Shuttl’. All of Shuttl’s current team, including key people who have been a part of Shuttl’s core team since inception, will continue under their current roles.

Chalo’s app provides live tracking of over 15,000 buses in 21 cities and had more than 70 lakh downloads as of July 2021. Chalo and Shuttl have a presence in 33 cities across 12 Indian states including Delhi NCR, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, and others.