Intrcity Smartbus Lands $30m At $140m Valuation To Deepen Its Grip On India’s Intercity Travel Market

IntrCity SmartBus, a tech-enabled intercity autobus level successful India, has raised $30 cardinal successful backing to grow its web crossed smaller cities and towns successful nan South Asian nation. The all-equity Series D round, led by A91 Partners, values nan Noida-based startup astatine $140 cardinal post-money.

Intercity recreation is accelerating successful India arsenic much group migrate from smaller towns to metropolitan cities for activity and education.

To meet this demand, New Delhi has importantly expanded nan country’s road infrastructure. The nationalist road web has increased by complete 60% successful nan past decade, from 56,723 miles to 90,847 miles, according to Indian authorities data.

Railways, while extensive, stay capacity-constrained and cannot support gait pinch rising inter-state recreation demand. That makes long-distance roadworthy recreation a important alternative. Yet, state-run intercity autobus services are constricted and often autumn short connected reliability and comfortableness — a spread IntrCity SmartBus intends to fill.

Unlike accepted operators, IntrCity SmartBus runs connected an asset-light exemplary by partnering pinch section autobus owners and equipping their vehicles pinch proprietary hardware for real-time tracking, co-founder and president Kapil Raizada said successful an interview.

The startup besides centralizes summons booking and way readying done its integer platform, which helps find work frequency, pickup points, boarding stations, and moreover spot configurations based connected demand.

To guarantee information and consistency, IntrCity places trained unit — called “captains” — connected committee each bus, Raizada told TechCrunch. Most vehicles characteristic washrooms, and nan institution has besides group up air-conditioned boarding lounges staffed pinch unit to amended nan pre-departure experience.

“All our buses are cloud-connected,” he noted. “There is simply a autobus operating system, which we person built up in-house, which monitors and manages a batch of parameters, including nan CCTV, sound, and somesthesia levels.”

Founded successful 2019, IntrCity SmartBus began arsenic an online train ticketing level nether nan RailYatri brand. That introduction constituent gave nan squad early insights into intercity recreation behaviour and unmet request successful road-based mobility, Raizada said.

Today, RailYatri contributes conscionable astir 10% of nan startup’s full revenue, while nan SmartBus business accounts for nan remaining 90%, he added.

IntrCity SmartBus operates astir 600 regular autobus trips, transporting betwixt 20,000 and 25,000 passengers each time — astir 700,000 per month. The level useful pinch much than 50 section autobus operators and runs trips averaging complete 311 miles each. About 95% of its services are overnight, catering chiefly to non-discretionary recreation needs specified arsenic work, education, aliases basal appointments.

The startup’s emblematic passengers are betwixt 20 and 45 years old, including mini business owners, trainers, authorities officials, income professionals, and students.

The startup follows a hub-and-spoke exemplary and has identified 15 to 16 cardinal economical hubs crossed India. It operates successful 13 to 14 of these hubs, spanning 15 states. The web covers each of bluish India — from Jammu to Uttarakhand — and overmuch of nan south, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.

“A batch of information crunching goes into knowing what nan user needs,” said Manish Rathi, co-founder and CEO of IntrCity SmartBus. “This includes decisions for illustration what benignant of layout a autobus should person — should it beryllium a afloat sleeper, aliases a hybrid pinch some sleepers and seats?”

IntrCity SmartBus grew its gross by 67% year-over-year to ₹5 cardinal (approximately $57 million) successful nan past fiscal year. The startup projects gross to surpass ₹7 cardinal (around $79 million) successful nan existent year. It has been “EBITDA-positive” for nan past mates of years and intends to go afloat profitable this year.

With nan latest funding, nan startup plans to spell “deeper and wider” done nan state and heighten customer acquisition and safety, arsenic good arsenic upgrade its fleet guidance technology.

“One of nan bigger challenges successful in autobus mobility crossed nan state that group person concerns astir busses. It is seen arsenic a lesser relative to trains and flights,” Raizada told TechCrunch. “We want to make busses nan preferred mode of recreation successful India.”

More than 223 cardinal intercity journeys were made successful India successful nan financial twelvemonth 2025, according to a recent report by online autobus ticketing level RedBus. The assemblage added complete 72,000 caller intercity routes past year, on pinch astir 6,400 caller buses — expanding capacity by an estimated 265,000 regular seats.

Alongside IntrCity SmartBus, India is seeing a activity of new-age intercity autobus startups specified arsenic ZingBus, LeafyBus, and FreshBus. European elephantine FlixBus besides entered nan Indian market early past year, signaling increasing traction successful nan space. Still, IntrCity views title arsenic secondary to execution.

“India is simply a very different beast erstwhile it comes to roadworthy travel. If thing is going to spell wrong, it will spell wrong,” Rathi said. “We’re not a network-first company. We’re an operational-excellence-first company.”