20 December 2018
ah! Ventures has announced its exit from Noida based startup, AHA Taxis (a division of WAAH Taxis Pvt Ltd). Ebix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBIX), a leading international supplier of On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries, announced that one of its India-based EbixCash subsidiaries has acquired a 70 percent stake in AHA Taxis, a platform for on-demand inter-city cabs in India.
AHA Taxis focuses its attention on Corporate and Consumer inter-city travel primarily, with a network of more than 15,000 registered AHA Taxis. AHA has pioneered an offering of one-way fare for hiring taxis for outstation trips, whereas the trade norm used to be to charge the return fare. AHA solved this problem while engaging its proprietary technology, algorithm and network.
Founded by first generation entrepreneurs Amit Grover, Kunal Krishna and Shivam Mishra,who bring a solid blend of experience and youth to EbixCash, with hands on execution expertise in technology, operations and marketing; the Company today has a network spread across 4,000+ cities, having served 20,000+ routes and 15+ million kilometres of travel as of now.
Build on cutting edge technology that is served over the cloud to all its constituents, the AHA Taxis service is available at finger tips to consumers and corporates across the country. With features like number masking, live tracking, open APIs, multiple payment gateways, the AHA Taxis solution is available over any mobile device in an App form or over the internet in a matter of minutes wherever you are in India. The AHA Taxis service is considered one of the most efficient and cost effective one-way inter-city travel options in India today, as the Company at any time has a massive registered network of cars who have just finished a one-way travel to a city from their home base location and are looking for passengers, to return back to their home city wanting to avoid going back without a passenger; and are thus willing to price the trip aggressively.most efficient and cost effective one-way inter-city travel options in India today, as the Company at any time has a massive registered network of cars who have just finished a one-way travel to a city from their home base location and are looking for passengers, to return back to their home city wanting to avoid going back without a passenger; and are thus willing to price the trip aggressively.
Ebix Chairman, President and CEO Robin Raina said, “AHA Taxis provides our Via and Mercury travel brands with another in-house tool to cross-sell cab services to our Corporates, B2C clients and OTA clients. We were already usingAHA as one of the outside vendors to whom we would handover inter-city cab travel, because of the efficiency and pricing provided by AHA. Our 260,000+ strong franchise network will now be able to not only sell cab travel as an integral tool through online cloud based technology, but also be able to register new car drivers to the AHA network across the country and convert AHA into one of the largest inter-city cab networks in the country.”
AHA Co-Founder Amit Grover said, “We have been a startup till now that has grown approximately 100 times since January 2015. We grew AHA on minimal seed capital and became break-even in 2018. We needed the physical and digital client & franchisee expanse of a massive network like EbixCash to substantially grow our business. We are quite excited by the growth opportunities ahead of us.”
AHA Co-Founder Kunal Krishna said, “Our domain knowledge and technology has helped us solve the several decades problem plaguing the taxi travel space in the country. With Ebix, we intend to take AHA offerings to every Tier 2, Tier 3 city in the country and help millions of people save money on their travel. AHA technology does not only solve the problem for India, and in-fact can also be extended to other South Asian countries.”
AHA Co-Founder Shivam Mishra said, “AHA has been positively changing the dynamics of outstation taxi market in India. We are set out with a mission of ‘Anywhere to anywhere one-way out-station taxi’, and we are ecstatic that Ebix would be helping us achieve our mission, and change the way people travel in the country.”
About AHA Taxis
AHA is a leading online outstation taxi company for booking outstation taxis across different cities in India. Started with the vision of making outstation taxi booking easier and affordable for the masses, AHA has been positively changing the dynamics of outstation taxi market in India. With thousands of driver partners and pan India presence, we are now providing outstation taxis service in more than 3000 cities across India.In 2 years time, we have grown to India’s number 1 outstation taxi service, Best in Price and Biggest in Reach. On roads, we connect Kashmir to Kanyakumari every day. The application is very user friendly. It’s easy to use as well. Just download the app or open the website, fill in details of your travel and instantly book a one-way or roundtrip outstation cab.
It is a new age idea that offers online booking for one way taxis across India, helping taxi owners earn more income while also enabling customers to save 1000s of rupees on their travel expenses. Thus it is helping both, the customers and the drivers.
While many competitors (thousands of offline players as well as online players like Ola) offer round-trip expenses and are limited to metros like Delhi, AHA Taxis has within a year of operations served over 1350+ routes across 350+ cities. With the focus on mobile apps as well as desktop, it has API partnership with Ixigo, Via and several other distribution partners for a wide reach.
About ah! Ventures
ah! Ventures is a startup focused growth catalyst that brings together promising businesses and investors by creating wealth creation opportunities for both. ah!’s unique model serves investors, entrepreneurs & enablers through a unique blend of customised services, skill, and industry & domain experience.
Founded in 2010, ah! Ventures has systematically disrupted India’s early stage funding ecosystem through its innovative approach toward startup investing. First of its kind initiatives like the CLUB ah! Network & Platform – India’s first full-spectrum startup investment network & platform, ah! Angels – India’s largest angel network, ah! Seeders and ah! VC networks – India’s first seed & VC investment networks respectively, have brought together and integrated the otherwise previously segregated startup funding lifecycle, under one roof. This, coupled with ah! Impact network – an impact investment network for investing in social enterprises, ah! Mentors network – a mentor network to assist startups in their growth and expansion, ah! Marketplace – first and only one-stop shop for accredited startup service-providers, ah! Gyan Guru – a startup focused edu-knowledge platform, STARup – a startup summit poised to be the biggest and the best in India, has today made ah! Ventures not just one of India’s most respected change leaders, but also a formidable industry force to recon with. ah! has recently launched its unique mobile app (on iOS and Android app stores) to cater to the ever-growing startup ecosystem.