WhistleDrive raises $10 M, plans aggressive growth

Hyderabad: WhistleDrive, an employee transportation company which provides technology-enabled fleet services for corporates, on Thursday announced plans to expand its operations with Rs 72 crores raised from the Chicago-based Colosseum Group.

The Hyderabad-headquartered company, which currently operates over a 700-strong fleet in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai, plans to rollout its services in Pune early next year. It is also looking at Gurugram and Noida to launch its services.

WhistleDrive founder and CEO Rakesh Munnanooru told reporters that with this series B investment they are looking to grow 10 times in 12 months.

The company, which transports more than 15,000 employees to their offices every day, plans to increase its trips to 10 lakh per month from one lakh currently.

WhistleDrive, which currently has annual revenues of Rs 15 crore, is also looking to grow 10 times. The number of employees is also expected to reach 400-500 from the current headcount of 76.

The company currently serves 32 clients including ADP, Invesco and Hitachi Consulting.

"The tech-platform, Whistle Tech, developed by the company, allows corporates to automate the entire transportation process resulting in significant cost savings and also improve employee satisfaction via a reliable, comfortable and secure ride to work," he said.

Shailendra Tipparaju, Chairman of Colosseum Group, said their offerings include "Whistle Fleet" - technology enabled fleet, "Whistle Shuttle" - a B2B shuttle service for last mile connectivity and point pick-ups and "Whistle 360o" - end to end transport management powered by best in class technology and ground operations.

The number of direct workforce in India's Information Technology sector is pegged at about 3.9 million, of which 1.1 million use transport arranged by the company. The transportation sector in India is currently valued at a whopping $16 billion, of which about $2.5 billion is spent directly by Indian corporates. Yet, the domain still suffers from a lack of tech intervention, said Shailendra.

Founded in 2016, the company has raised Rs 5 crores from Colosseum Group last year. It bagged several awards including the 10 best Start-ups in Hyderabad- 2018, 50 emerging start-ups to watch in 2019.

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