redBus is an online bus ticket booking company that provides bus ticket booking through its

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and Android mobile apps. redBus India is headquartered in

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

and works like a hub, acting as a medium for a network of more than 3500 bus operators, across the countries of India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Peru, and Colombia. It claims to have registered over 180 million trips, with a customer base of over 20 million. In 2018, the company achieved a GMV of , with a 70% share in the Indian online bus ticketing segment. In 2013, redBus was acquired by Ibibo Group. In 2017, the Ibibo Group was acquired by

MakeMyTrip MakeMyTrip Limited is an Indian online travel company, headquartered in Gurgaon. Founded in 2000, the company provides online travel services including airline tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations, rail and ...

History

redBus was founded in 2006 by Phanindra Sama, Sudhakar Pasupunuri and Charan Padmaraju, engineers from the

Birla Institute of Technology and Science The Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) is a private deemed university in Pilani, Rajasthan, India. It focuses primarily on higher education and research in engineering and sciences. BITS Pilani was one of the first s ...

, who also worked together at various organisations before founding the company. With an initial investment of , the founders began operations in 2006, by tying up with various travel agents for seat reservations through the redBus portal. In the same year the company was selected for the TiE

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

Acceleration Program and was mentored on several aspects of the business. The company owns BOGDS, a cloud computing service for bus operators, and SeatSeller, a GDS for bus inventory distribution.

Operation

In 2014, the company appointed Prakash Sangam as its

Chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

, who was earlier the

Executive Vice President A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...

of Info Edge India (Naukri Group), heading Shiksha.com and Jeevansathi.com. In April 2022, redBus appointed

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, as its

brand ambassador A brand ambassador (sometimes also called a corporate ambassador) is a person paid by an organization or company to represent its brand in a positive light, helping to increase brand awareness and sales. The brand ambassador is meant to embody the ...

Partnership

In 2012, redBus tied-up with Goa State Road Transport to launch an online ticketing portal. In the same year, the company announced a partnership with the

Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC) is a public transport company which provides bus services in the Indian state Rajasthan. It is headquartered in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The corporation was established by Government of Rajasthan on ...

( RSRTC), following which it started offering RSRTC bus tickets on the portal. Early in 2019, redBus partnered with Acko General Insurance to offer

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for its users to cover

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, baggage loss, cancellation and bus-type mismatch. It also partnered with Truecaller, to offer bus ticket booking on

Android devices Android is an operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen-based mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android has historically been developed by ...

. redBus afterwards announced a partnership with

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

to display information on busses that ply between cities with the time and date services to enhance user experience. June 2019, redBus started ride sharing operations - rPool, across Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad. rPool is an option that helps ride givers to share(pool) their vehicle to fellow ride takers. On 26 November 2019, redBus partnered with

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to launch a bus ticket booking service on Amazon.

Funding

In 2007, redBus received its first round of funding of $1 million () from SeedFund and undisclosed investors. SeedFund had invested $500,000 in the company while other investors accounted for the remaining $500,000 investment. In 2009, the company raised a funding of a $2.5 million from Inventus Capital Partners, Seed Fund and other unnamed

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of pr ...

s. In 2011, redBus raised another funding of $6.5 million from Helion Venture Partners, Seedfund and Inventus Capital. In 2013, redBus was acquired by Ibibo Group, a subsidiary of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

’s Naspers.

External links

References