Plan and pay for your trip on the Indian Metro with this app that just got $6 million

Photo credit: Abhijit Rane.

One way to get large amounts of people to pay for things online is to tap into crowds where behaviors are already established. That means things like digital electricity bill payments, or topping up payment cards for public transportation.

The latter has a lot of potential in India. Last year, the Mumbai Metro was ranked the eighth most dense rail corridor in the world – and startups are taking notice of the opportunity.

One is Ridlr, an app operated by Birds Eye Systems. It tracks public transport, lets riders plan their trips, and recharges metro cards.

It eventually plans to provide end-to-end connectivity for riders across India, from planning to payment. Its trip planner works across 14 cities, from the bustling public trains of Delhi to the snaky routes of Jaipur, and factors in details like train delays and cancellations.

The recharge feature currently only works with the Mumbai Metro, but Ridlr’s founder, Brijraj Vaghani, explains that it will soon work with Mumbai’s extensive bus service, BEST.

Ridlr today announced a series B round of US$6 million led by Times Internet with participation from its existing investors, Matrix Partners and Qualcomm. It also raised some debt money from Innoven Capital. Before this, Ridlr’s parent company Birds Eye raised an undisclosed amount of series A money from Qualcomm in 2014, after an initial round from Matrix Partners.

Mo money

Brijraj, an ex-engineer, has some history with Indian traffic. Before this, he launched Birds Eye Systems and founded Traffline, an app similar to Waze that provides real-time traffic information across India’s cities.

Ridlr was launched soon after in 2013.

It takes a small fee every time a user transacts with the app. Brijraj claims that 2,000 people are recharging their cards with it every day, at an average ticket size of US$1.50 to US$2.

Users can pay with last-mile transactor Freecharge or go through payment gateway Citrus Pay. For offline payments, it works with Suvidhaa.

According to Brijraj, competition in the country is slim. PayTM has an option for metro card recharges, but doesn’t have extensive information on India’s metro system. The Mumbai Metro’s own online payment system – powered by telco Reliance – is clunky and slow.

With Ridlr, users can pay as fast as they move – all while planning and preparing for their trip without having to leave the app. Succeeding in the sector also has a lot to do with partnerships, which gives Ridlr an advantage over other startups with its early moves.

The fresh funding will be used to develop the product and make transactions smoother. It also plans to create hardware infrastructure, but Brij doesn’t elaborate on that point.