Rocket Internet has a ridesharing company called Tripda, and it just arrived in Southeast Asia

Well, this is a surprise. Rocket Internet, the venture accelerator best known for taking proven business models and exporting them globally, has launched a carpooling service known as Tripda in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

We had no idea Rocket Internet even had a ridesharing company in its portfolio. But according to The Star Online, Tripda has been active in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico for some time.

Tripda appears to operate less like Uber and Lyft, which get passengers in vehicles in under ten minutes, and more like a carpooling service for people planning long trips. According to the Tripda website, passengers can create accounts only by binding their Facebook ID to Tripda’s website. Afterwards, they enter their pickup location, destination, and date of departure. Drivers, meanwhile, must “register” their vehicle with Tripda by providing the company with its “brand, model, number of seats available and level of comfort.” Afterwards, they can enter upcoming car trips. Tripda then matches drivers and passengers looking to travel on the same route, and sets a suggested price for drivers to charge each passenger. Once the ride is completed, drivers and passengers can rate one another.

As far as we can tell, Tripda is in the very early stages. Its website is littered with punctuation and grammar errors. The clunky Android app is half in English, half in Brazilian. But this is the norm for young Rocket Internet ventures, which tend to aim for quiet local launches as soon as the product is barely usable.

See: Failure to launch: 5 Rocket Internet failures

The move into carpooling marks an unusual decision for the Rocket Internet. The company tends to be reckless in its execution, rolling out portfolio companies at a rapid pace, but it’s relatively conservative with regard to the types of firms it launches. Ecommerce companies like Lazada and Zalora have traditionally remained its strong suit, while payment processor Paymill and the ill-fated Pinspire Pinterest-clone represent anomalies in its startup roster.

Moreover, Tripda’s launch ought to raise eyebrows because no carpool-minded startup has ever achieved scale in any market. RideJoy, a San Francisco-based carpool startup that raised funding from Y Combinator, closed its doors in late 2013. Some readers might be familiar with a startup called Zimride, which saw little traction until it pivoted to on-demand rides, invested in pink facial hair, and rebranded as Lyft.

Rocket Internet’s cab-booking app Easy Taxi is available in more than 160 cities worldwide, but taxi apps and carpooling apps are two different ballgames. As Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb’s continuous legal battles demonstrate, any startup that achieves scale off the backs of consumer-owned assets is bound to butt heads with local governments. For what it’s worth, sources familiar with Tripda have told Tech in Asia that Tripda marks a conscious decision to emulate Lyft outside the US, and that the company intends to pivot to on-demand rides in the future. If this is indeed true, Rocket Internet is in for a bumpy ride.

Rocket Internet is currently preparing to go public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. While it can hold up fashion site Zalora and durable goods site Lazada as shining examples of its success in Asia, it’s not uncommon to see half-baked Rocket ventures make local headlines before disappearing as if they never existed. Given its long-shot business pitch, don’t be surprised if Tripda carpools straight to the deadpool.

Editing by Steven Millward; top image via Flickr user spitefully