We plan to take OneWay.Cab pan-India in four months: Vivek Kejriwal

After getting $450,000 of funding from Indian Angel Network, Ahmedabad-based OneWay.Cab, a single-way taxi service provider, launched services in Kolkata, Kanpur, Agra, Lucknow, Asansol, Durgapur, etc. Co-founder and CEO of OneWayCab, Vivek Kejriwal, in coversation with Ateeq Shaikh, speaks about the two-year-old journey and the way forward for the start-up to expand its inter-city cab hailing aggregation business in South India.

When did OneWayCab take off? What were the initial challenges?

We started in January 2015, with cabs doing city operations in Vadodara and Ahmedabad. Back then, Ola and Uber were not present in the city and came only a year later. During our business tenure, we figured out that when a passenger travels one way inter-city, s/he even has to pay a return fare, which even we were charging. That’s where the actual idea emerged and we piloted the idea in Vadodara and Ahmedabad. Later, we ran in unorganised markets like Mumbai-Pune and Delhi-Chandigarh. As one way fare was totally unheard of, the challenges too were different. Earlier, it was a learning experience, now we can open a new inter-city route with ease.

What were the difficulties faced to get investors?

It is relatively easy to reach out to the investors if they are present in the eco-system, for example, Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore. But coming from cities like Ahmedabad and Vadodara, we had our own set of challenges in terms of reaching out to inventors and convincing them that the idea can be replicated across India.

How many routes do you operate in?

We go region-by-region, whenever we open a route, we explore it properly. Initially, there were only two routes, but we went on to expanding from Ahmedabad to Vadodara to Surat, Surat to Mumbai, Mumbai to Pune, and so on. Today, we are present in 46 cities/ towns and 429 routes.

What’s your expansion plan?

We want to have a pan-India presence and are in full-fledged expansion mode. We have already made our presence in the western as well as northern regions in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. In southern India, it will be a different challenge due to language-related issues, which we will eventually overcome. In next two months, we will move to south India starting with Chennai, Bangalore, Mangalore, Trichy, Hyderabad, etc. In another four months, we are looking for pan-India presence.

Are you looking to raise more money?

Yes, we had received $4,50,000 funding in June 2016 from Indian Angel Network. Now, we are looking to raise money from series A funding which will help us to penetrate deeper in the market. We are looking for funds in the range of $5 million. By the time funding materialises, our system and operations would be ready pan-India. We do not want any offices outside Vadodara and Ahmedabad. We are trying not to increase our cost structure and continue to remain an asset light model.