IntrCity SmartBus lands $30M at $140M valuation to deepen its grip on India’s intercity journey market

IntrCity SmartBus, a tech-enabled intercity bus platform in India, has raised $30 million in funding to develop its community throughout smaller cities and cities within the South Asian nation. The all-equity Series D spherical, led by A91 Partners, values the Noida-based startup at $140 million post-money.

Intercity journey is accelerating in India as extra individuals migrate from smaller cities to metropolitan cities for work and schooling.

To meet this demand, New Delhi has considerably expanded the nation’s freeway infrastructure. The nationwide freeway community has increased by over 60% previously decade, from 56,723 miles to 90,847 miles, based on Indian authorities knowledge.

Railways, whereas intensive, stay capacity-constrained and can’t maintain tempo with rising inter-state journey demand. That makes long-distance highway journey an important different. Yet, state-run intercity bus providers are restricted and infrequently fall quick on reliability and luxury — a spot IntrCity SmartBus goals to fill.

Unlike conventional operators, IntrCity SmartBus runs on an asset-light mannequin by partnering with native bus house owners and equipping their automobiles with proprietary {hardware} for real-time monitoring, co-founder and president Kapil Raizada stated in an interview.

The startup additionally centralizes ticket reserving and route planning via its digital platform, which helps decide service frequency, pickup factors, boarding stations, and even seat configurations based mostly on demand.

To guarantee security and consistency, IntrCity locations skilled personnel — referred to as “captains” — on board every bus, Raizada advised TechCrunch. Most automobiles function washrooms, and the corporate has additionally arrange air-conditioned boarding lounges staffed with crew to enhance the pre-departure expertise.

“All our buses are cloud-connected,” he famous. “There is a bus operating system, which we have built up in-house, which monitors and manages a lot of parameters, including the CCTV, sound, and temperature levels.”

Founded in 2019, IntrCity SmartBus started as a web based prepare ticketing platform beneath the RailYatri model. That entry level gave the crew early insights into intercity journey habits and unmet demand in road-based mobility, Raizada stated.

Today, RailYatri contributes simply round 10% of the startup’s whole income, whereas the SmartBus enterprise accounts for the remaining 90%, he added.

IntrCity SmartBus operates round 600 day by day bus journeys, transporting between 20,000 and 25,000 passengers every day — practically 700,000 per thirty days. The platform works with greater than 50 native bus operators and runs journeys averaging over 311 miles every. About 95% of its providers are in a single day, catering primarily to non-discretionary journey wants akin to work, schooling, or important appointments.

The startup’s typical passengers are between 20 and 45 years previous, together with small enterprise house owners, trainers, authorities officers, gross sales professionals, and college students.

The startup follows a hub-and-spoke mannequin and has recognized 15 to 16 key financial hubs throughout India. It operates in 13 to 14 of those hubs, spanning 15 states. The community covers all of northern India — from Jammu to Uttarakhand — and far of the south, together with Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.

“A lot of data crunching goes into understanding what the consumer needs,” stated Manish Rathi, co-founder and CEO of IntrCity SmartBus. “This includes decisions like what kind of layout a bus should have — should it be a full sleeper, or a hybrid with both sleepers and seats?”

IntrCity SmartBus grew its income by 67% year-over-year to ₹5 billion (roughly $57 million) within the final fiscal yr. The startup tasks income to surpass ₹7 billion (round $79 million) within the present yr. It has been “EBITDA-positive” for the previous couple of years and goals to turn into absolutely worthwhile this yr.

With the newest funding, the startup plans to go “deeper and wider” via the nation and improve buyer expertise and security, in addition to improve its fleet administration expertise.

“One of the bigger challenges in in bus mobility across the country that people have concerns about busses. It is seen as a lesser cousin to trains and flights,” Raizada advised TechCrunch. “We want to make busses the preferred mode of travel in India.”

More than 223 million intercity journeys have been made in India within the monetary yr 2025, based on a recent report by on-line bus ticketing platform RedBus. The sector added over 72,000 new intercity routes final yr, together with roughly 6,400 new buses — increasing capability by an estimated 265,000 day by day seats.

Alongside IntrCity SmartBus, India is seeing a wave of new-age intercity bus startups akin to ZingBus, LeafyBus, and FreshBus. European big FlixBus additionally entered the Indian market early final yr, signaling rising traction within the area. Still, IntrCity views competitors as secondary to execution.

“India is a very different beast when it comes to road travel. If something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong,” Rathi stated. “We’re not a network-first company. We’re an operational-excellence-first company.”