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Amid Ola and Uber driver unrest, Jugnoo launches taxi services

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CIOL Writers
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CIOL Amid Ola and Uber driver unrest, Jugnoo launches taxi services

Though Jugnoo’s entry into the online taxi-hailing space has been anticipated since it acquired cab booking platform BookMyCab in July 2015, the online auto-rickshaw aggregator finally made its foray into the segment only this last Sunday.

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The company has debuted its ride-hailing services, currently only available to users in Gurgaon and will be expanding to other cities in the coming weeks. Jugnoo, which also delivers food and grocery through its auto-rickshaw partners, is expecting taxi drivers to move to its platform following the withdrawal of driver incentives by both Ola and Uber.

“We at Jugnoo saw a vacuum in the taxi aggregation business in India. We analysed the issues faced by taxi drivers off late and have come up with a strategy to provide taxi services at prices where drivers do not work at artificially lower rates than their costs. At the moment, the existing players have not been able to balance this and therefore, we intend to fill in the gaps,” said Chinmay Agarwal, co-founder and COO of Jugnoo.

The Chandigarh-based start-up said fares on its platform will be higher than those offered by Ola and Uber because they aim to “provide taxi services at prices where drivers do not work at artificially lower rates than their costs.”

But it really won’t be easy for Jugnoo to find foot space in a segment currently dominated by Ola and Uber. The company has raised more than $16 million in four funding rounds until date and claims to cover 40 cities with its service and to have about 12,000 auto-rickshaws on its platform.

Founded by IIT-Delhi alumni Chinmay Agarwal and Samar Singla in 2014, the company raised $8 million in two rounds from Paytm, Pune-based Snow Leopard Technology Ventures and Freecharge’s Kunal Shah, among others in 2015.

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