Ryde, a smaller Singapore-based ride-hailing app, has managed to secure fresh funding to expand its operations in the local market, despite stiff competition from Grab and Gojek in the city-state.
According to a Business Times report, Ryde Technologies, which claims to be Singapore’s first carpooling firm founded in 2015, received an undisclosed amount from investment firm Nomad X for its Ryde app.
The funding comes more than three years after Ryde Technologies secured US$1.5 million in seed funding from unnamed investors and less than a year after the firm launched RydeX, its new private-hire car service as part of its growth expansion strategy.
With the investment, Ryde appointed Nomad X’s director and chief investment officer Tan Suan Jin as its chairman. Ryde said it will use the fresh funds to expand operations, introduce new features, upgrade its proprietary payment systems, and further hone up the skills of its team.
As of March last year, Ryde said it has a combined fleet of over 55,000 drivers – both private cars and taxis – serving over 300,000 passengers in Singapore.
Ryde Technologies founder and CEO Terence Zhou said the company plans to expand and innovative aggressively in the coming months, even as Grab and Gojek are also in expansion mood.
Earlier this month, Indonesian ride-hailing giant Gojek said it has already completed more than a million trips since launching less than two months ago.
Grab has been operating in Singapore since 2013.
Last year, Ryde obtained the certificate for Class 1 third-party taxi booking service from the Land Transport Authority.
With the certification, the company signed up 10,000 new taxi drivers for its RydeX private-hire service, bringing the total RydeX driver fleet to over 20,000.
This article is written by Mars Woo (edited by Nadine Freischlad); and was first seen on KRAsia.
