India’s Bus Sharing Startup Shuttl Lands $11M In Venture Funding

Shuttl, the bus sharing app startup based in India, raised $11 million in a series B round of venture funding.

In a press release, Shuttl said the round of venture funding was held via Amazon India in connection with the Amazon Alexa Fund. Other investors in the round include Dentsu Ventures and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Times Internet and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

“By taking on the everyday urban commute, Shuttl is solving for a large and relevant customer pain point. Amazon is impressed by Shuttl’s journey so far and excited to back missionary founders and management teams,” says Amit Agarwal, the country head at Amazon India.

Meanwhile, Amit Singh, chief executive and co-founder of Shuttl, said in the same news release that with the funding, the company will continue to improve the customer experience, design more routes and “restore the dignity of commuting for millions of people.”

Amazon isn’t the only one eyeing the India market. Facebook-owned WhatsApp is still working toward approval from the Indian government to officially launch its payment service across the country. In February, WhatsApp launched a payments feature in India that now has around one million users. The app is in the process of fixing any issues with the payment feature and adding more functionality during beta testing of the service, which is based on the Unified Payments Interface of the NPCI. But it needs to wait for clearance from the government for a full-fledged rollout across the country.

“All signs point to a lot of people wanting to use this when the government gives us the green light. And in the meantime, we’ve broadened our focus to building this for other countries so we can give more people this ability faster,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a recent investor call, according to BGR India.