By Abhay Ray 
Introduction
Success stories of various IIT graduates come to the fore, about them working in top multinational companies. However, one success story of building a brand value worth 6,700 crore within a decade has inspired numerous youths.
One such example is that of Pavan Guntupalli, who co-founded the bike-taxi platform Rapido.Once finding financial backing for his innovative idea, Guntupalli’s Rapido now operates in over 100 cities in the country and has crossed 5 crore app downloads.
Who Is Pavan Guntupalli?
He hails from Telangana and cleared the highly competitive IIT-JEE exam and pursued BTech from IIT Kharagpur. After his graduation, he started his career at Samsung. He went on to become co-founder of “theKarrier”, a logistics startup, with his friend.
However, he got a setback when his startup did not succeed and was shut down. Not discouraged by this failure, Guntupalli started Rapido, a bike-taxi service meant to offer affordable and easy travel options like bike rides and auto-rickshaws for people who needed quick and low-cost transport. But getting investors to support the idea was very difficult. Pavan faced many rejections — 75 investors turned him down, doubting whether Rapido could stand up to big companies like Uber and Ola.
How the idea of Rapido started?
In 2015, stuck in a Bengaluru traffic jam, Guntupalli had an insight. While Ola and Uber dominated four-wheel transport, commuters were still losing time in gridlock and paying premium fares. He realised bikes could solve both problems, they were faster, cheaper, and ideal for short trips in congested cities. This seed of an idea became Rapido, India’s first dedicated bike-taxi platform.
That’s when Pavan got the idea for Rapido, instead of cars, he chose bikes. Bikes are faster in traffic and cheaper for short trips. He launched Rapido with the goal of helping people beat traffic and travel at low cost. In 2015, Rapido became India’s first bike taxi service. And today, it’s a name known in almost every city.
How Rapido grew from rejections to a ₹9,600 crore company
Back when Ola and Uber ruled big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, Rapido decided to do something different. Instead of fighting them in metro cities, they focused on Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities, where people still faced daily travel struggles. Their idea? Let people travel quickly and cheaply on bike taxis which was perfect for office trips, markets, or short-distance rides. Initially, Rapido charged just ₹15 as a base fare and ₹3 per km, making it affordable but challenging to turn a profit.
But starting Rapido wasn’t easy. Pavan Guntupalli launched Rapido with two of his friends. The biggest challenge? Funding. Investors were already pouring money into cab companies like Ola and Uber. Nobody was ready to bet on bikes — back then, bike taxis were unfamiliar, and there were no clear rules or laws for this service.
Even worse, when Ola and Uber noticed Rapido’s idea, they launched their own bike taxi services. This made investors even more hesitant. They didn’t believe Rapido would survive, let alone succeed. Pavan and his team were rejected by 75 investors.
Their Luck Changed in 2016
Pawan Munjal, the Chairman and MD of Hero MotoCorp, saw potential in Rapido and became their first big investor. Once that happened, more investors started showing interest. With new funding, Rapido launched 400 bikes across Bengaluru, Delhi, and Gurugram. By January 2016, they had 5,000 users, and by the end of the year, that number grew to 1.5 lakh.
To attract customers, they kept things simple:
- Base fare: Rs. 15
- No commission from riders in the beginning
- Riders were proudly called “Captains”
This no-commission model made Rapido popular among both riders and drivers. Soon, they had over 50,000 Captains and 7 lakh users.
The app has been downloaded over 50 million times on Google Play and Apple Store, with around 7 lakh users and a team of 50,000 riders, or “captains.”
Rapido kept growing fast. By 2019, the company was doing around 70,000 trips a day. Today, Rapido operates in over 100 cities and has more than 5 crore app downloads.
Conclusion
Pavan Guntupalli’s journey from an IIT graduate to the co-founder of a ₹9,600 crore bike taxi empire is a powerful story of perseverance, innovation, and strategic thinking. Despite early failures and being rejected by 75 investors, he stayed committed to his vision of making daily transport affordable and efficient. By focusing on underserved Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities and choosing bikes over cars, Rapido carved a unique space in India’s ride-hailing market. With support from key investors like Hero MotoCorp’s Pawan Munjal and a user-first approach, Rapido transformed urban commuting and continues to grow rapidly across India.
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