Careem has acquired Commut, the Hyderabad-based mass transportation app.
As the region’s only tech unicorn, we are always looking to invest in new technologies and high-calibre people to help solve complex local problems. And mass transportation is one of the biggest issues facing cities in the Greater Middle East.
Improving the quality and availability of mass transportation will help to create affordable transport options that can be a catalyst for moving cities forward, therefore we were interested in Commut.
Founded by six IIIT Hyderabad graduates, the tech-driven bus shuttle service that has been operating in Hyderabad since November 2015. To date, they’ve made over 750,000 trips within more than 100 existing routes and are the third-largest transportation app in India.
Backed by UK-Based Shell-Foundation and 50K Ventures, Commut served over 70,000 customers and onboarded 400 driver-partners. Now that Commut has joined Careem, their local operations – including its customers and driver-partners – have now been taken over by Shuttl, a shuttle service provider in India.
Prasanth Garapati, CEO of Commut, said: “We built Commut with the mission to touch and improve people’s lives by offering an economical, comfortable, safe and tech-enabled mass transit solution. Our mission is in line with Careem’s of providing users with a safe, reliable, affordable and convenient means of transportation for people. Joining Careem and building the mass transportation vertical will help us in fulfilling our mission at a much larger scale”.
As Careem expands across its technology platform, we will continue to acquire and invest in high impact, relevant and values driven technology businesses and start-ups that can accelerate growth. And with more people moving to cities in which we operate, our transport solutions are going to play an even greater part in solving the increasing mass-mobility problems. The acquisition of Commut is another step towards that goal.