WhistleDrive raises Rs 72 crore series B fund

Hyderabad: City-based WhistleDrive, a tech-enabled employee transportation company, on Thursday announced that it has raised Rs 72 crore from Chicago-based Colosseum Group. Currently, the startup operates 700-strong fleet across three cities.

With this investment, the fleet service provider aims to grow 10 times and enter two new cities in the next one year. Rakesh Munnanooru, Founder and CEO, WhistleDrive, said: "Our target is to grow 10 times with this series B investment.

Also, we will look beyond Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai to offer our TaaS (Transportation as a Service) model to corporates, expand fleets and fast-track customer acquisitions."

Munnanooru, further said that, at present, the tech-platform serves 32 clients, registering more than one lakh trips a month to transport more than 15,000 employees to their offices, every day.

Shailendra Tipparaju, Chairman, Colosseum Group, said: "The startup's roadmap is robust and we found it as the right time to re-invest in their growth story.

In addition to the significant value they add to the transportation industry through their scalable solution, we are excited to be associated with a young Indian team."

The offerings from WhistleDrive include Whistle Fleet, a technology enabled fleet, Whistle Shuttle, a B2B shuttle service for last mile connectivity and Whistle 360 degree, an end to end transport management and ground operations.

Founded in 2016, the Hyderabad-baed startup had earlier raised Rs 5 crores in April 2018 from Colosseum Group.