BackJugnoo closes $3 million in series B funding led by Paytm
Jugnoo aims to be in 40 new cities by the end of 2015
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Bengaluru: Jugnoo, a hyper-local online marketplace which facilitates autorickshaw rides and food and grocery deliveries through autorickshaws, on Tuesday said it had closed its Series B round of funding of $3 million from Paytm (One97 Communications Ltd), with participation from individual investors like Kunal shah, chief executive officer, Freecharge, to expand nationally.
The Chandigarh-based firm had earlier raised $5 million in a Series A funding round from Snow Leopard Technology Ventures with participation from Paytm. Prior to this, in May, it raised $1 million from angel investors including Rakesh Mathur, CEO of Flywheel and co-founder of Jungle (which was later acquired by Amazon), actor Saumya Tandon, angel investor Vikas Taneja and Just Weil, an investor in Facebook and Yandex.
The company, founded in 2014, operates in 22 cities, and claims that its platform, which lists 3,300 autos, has 15,000 daily transactions and about one million users.
Jugnoo aims to be in 40 new cities by the end of 2015, according to a statement released by the company.
“Jugnoo is trying to solve a very fundamental problem. Given their grasp of the auto-rickshaw space and their current traction, it just reconfirms that there is a huge potential in aggregating autos," said Vijay Shekar Sharma, CEO, Paytm.
The company faces stiff competition from online taxi hailing services such as Ola and Uber, which recently launched autorickshaw services in Delhi.
The company also operates Jugnoo Meals, a food-delivery service and Jugnoo Fatafat, a grocery-delivery service. It uses its fleet of autos as a logistics network for deliveries.
In the home-cooked food segment, Jugnoo will have to battle other Internet kitchens such as FreshMenu, SpoonJoy and Yumist, while its hyper-local delivery business faces competition from Grofers and PepperTap.
It has also acquired online taxi booking platform BookMyCab in a cash and stock deal, in a bid to enter the online taxi-hailing space and take on its bigger rivals.
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