AHA Taxis Raises Pre Series-A from ah! Ventures and Lead Angels

Noida based startup, AHA Taxis (a division of WAAH Taxis Pvt Ltd), India's leading online aggregator for outstation travel, raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding from ah! Ventures and Lead Angels Network. The company plans to use the funding to expand its reach to newer geographies, and further strengthen the operations and service offering to customers.

The IIT-IIM team led venture, AHA Taxis is set out to make inter-city travel easy, convenient and enable a user to save 40-50% on outstation taxis in over 350 cities across India, with 24x7 availability on mobile and web.

Founder of AHA Taxis, Amit Grover stated, “Three years back, we set out to solve a uniquely Indian problem of affordable and available outstation taxis. I am proud to have built a solution which caters to thousands of customers and drivers every day. Our investors’ show of confidence in our approach, despite the presence of biggies like Ola/Uber, is a big positive.”

Traditionally, inter-city taxi operators charge a return fare from customers even for one-way trips, as they are not assured of passengers on the return journey. AHA Taxis addresses the issue of double fare charges for outstation taxi travel by integrating technology, marketing and operational efficiency, leading to a highly viable alternative to trains and buses.

Giving an investors’ perspective, Harshad Lahoti, Founding Partner & CEO of ah! Ventures, said, “Since ah! Ventures’ seed round investment in AHA Taxi, the company has grown over 10X to 1,000 cities and 10,000 routes. Besides, despite the immense competition through applications such as Ola and Uber, AHA Taxi has created their own space and doing consistently well in maintaining the set standards and providing satisfaction to their customers. The positive reactions from their customers is a clear indication that AHA Taxi is on the right track and will create their own niche space in the near future. We are positive of their service offering & technology and also of their ability to create significant shareholder value."

In 2015, AHA Taxi had raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from ah! Ventures platform. Besides ah! Ventures now backing them again in the current Pre Series-A round, more new investors from Lead Angels Network have also participated.

“The estimated $12B market of inter-city taxi services market has seen many causalities, however, with their focus on unit economics and frugal operations AHA Taxi has ensured its place in this high potential market”, commented Sushanto Mitra, Founder Lead Angels Network.

Post it's seed funding round in 2015, AHA Taxis has grown 10X on key metrics and already achieved operational breakeven on monthly basis. Its taxi network today covers far-flung areas including Haldwani, Kasol, Kharagpur, Rameswaram, Somnath apart from all metros. AHA Taxis has developed key technologies for automatic driver allocation, auto-pricing, vehicle tracking, number masking and all of this has been done by its in-house technology team

FoodTech Startup TinMen Receives Second Round of Funding from Sify Cofounder and Others

Just when many food-tech startups are shutting shop, here’s one food tech startup that has recently closed its 2nd round of funding which is Hyderabad-based meal delivery startup -- TinMen. TinMen has raised an undisclosed investment round from MAPE Advisory Group, R. Ramaraj, Co-Founder Sify, and Corvus Ventures led by Mahesh Reddy. Existing seed investor Lead Angels have also participated in the round. Started in August 2015 by Mukesh Manda and Chaitanya Degala, TinMen offers homemade meals to professionals, with an in-app intuitive meal scheduler to make meals healthy and easily available for office-goers, while also providing employment opportunity to a number of home-based chefs.

Mahesh Reddy from Corvus Ventures says, "The food habits of Indians are undergoing significant changes and we found TinMen was one of the few companies able to cater to this need for homemade food with a keen focus on business fundamentals".

The company has been able to grow to delivering 30,000 homemade meals a month in such a short span of time primarily due to the high quality of its meals and scheduled deliveries from its rapidly growing team of 100+ home-chefs.

Mukesh Manda, alumni of IIT Kharagpur, co-founder of TinMen said, “We have a product which fits perfectly into the gap in the online food ordering for customers who are value and quality conscious. Our startup has built all of its technology in-house and we have learnt from the multiple challenges of the food + technology space over the last year. Our success in this dynamic sector is due to our focus on both frugality and innovation. TinMen has become operationally profitable and we expect to grow 10x to 3 lakh orders per month by December 2017.”

TinMen has been serving homemade lunches to customers in major IT hubs in Hyderabad and is now looking to expand across the city and venture out to other cities. The app has undergone significant structural and design changes primarily aimed at making it more intuitive. Subscribers will soon also be able to schedule breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner for their office as well as homes.

"When we met Mukesh and Chaitanya, the food tech sector was undergoing multiple closures and was almost given-up on, by majority of investors. Our decision to invest into Tinmen was driven by their determination to succeed in a tough situation and am glad that our bet has been more than vindicated," said Sushanto Mitra Founder & CEO, Lead Angels.

This is How TinMen Works: Users can create meal plans for a day, a week or a month and start and opt out of the deliveries at a day’s notice. Pre-scheduling on the App lets customers get their meals delivered at their desk everyday like clockwork. The app has a built-in wallet and chef reviews for a seamless user experience. Passionate home-chefs who are looking to reach out to a wider audience can also sign up on TinMen’s website and start making meals.

For mid-market companies who want to offer lunch benefits to their employees, TinMen acts as a virtual cafeteria; Companies have the flexibility to choose a budget for their employees on TinMen and the employees have the advantage of choosing from 100+ cuisine options on the App.