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IntrCity SmartBus, a tech-enabled intercity bus platform in India, has raised $30 million in funding to expand its network across smaller cities and towns in the South Asian nation. The all-equity Series D round, led by A91 Partners, values the Noida-based startup at $140 million post-money.<\/p>\n
Intercity travel is accelerating in India as more people migrate from smaller towns to metropolitan cities for work and education.<\/p>\n
To meet this demand, New Delhi has significantly expanded the country\u2019s highway infrastructure. The national highway network has increased by over 60%<\/a> in the past decade, from 56,723 miles to 90,847 miles, according to Indian government data. <\/p>\n Railways, while extensive, remain capacity-constrained and cannot keep pace with rising inter-state travel demand. That makes long-distance road travel a crucial alternative. Yet, state-run intercity bus services are limited and often fall short on reliability and comfort \u2014 a gap IntrCity SmartBus<\/a> aims to fill.<\/p>\n Unlike traditional operators, IntrCity SmartBus runs on an asset-light model by partnering with local bus owners and equipping their vehicles with proprietary hardware for real-time tracking, co-founder and president Kapil Raizada said in an interview.<\/p>\n The startup also centralizes ticket booking and route planning through its digital platform, which helps determine service frequency, pickup points, boarding stations, and even seat configurations based on demand.<\/p>\n To ensure safety and consistency, IntrCity places trained personnel \u2014 called \u201ccaptains\u201d \u2014 on board each bus, Raizada told TechCrunch. Most vehicles feature washrooms, and the company has also set up air-conditioned boarding lounges staffed with crew to improve the pre-departure experience.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> \u201cAll our buses are cloud-connected,\u201d he noted. \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Founded in 2019, IntrCity SmartBus began as an online train ticketing platform under the RailYatri brand. That entry point gave the team early insights into intercity travel behavior and unmet demand in road-based mobility, Raizada said.<\/p>\n Today, RailYatri contributes just around 10% of the startup\u2019s total revenue, while the SmartBus business accounts for the remaining 90%, he added.<\/p>\n IntrCity SmartBus operates around 600 daily bus trips, transporting between 20,000 and 25,000 passengers each day \u2014 nearly 700,000 per month. The platform works with more than 50 local bus operators and runs trips averaging over 311 miles each. About 95% of its services are overnight, catering primarily to non-discretionary travel needs such as work, education, or essential appointments. <\/p>\n The startup\u2019s typical passengers are between 20 and 45 years old, including small business owners, trainers, government officials, sales professionals, and students.<\/p>\n The startup follows a hub-and-spoke model and has identified 15 to 16 key economic hubs across India. It operates in 13 to 14 of these hubs, spanning 15 states. The network covers all of northern India \u2014 from Jammu to Uttarakhand \u2014 and much of the south, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of data crunching goes into understanding what the consumer needs,\u201d said Manish Rathi, co-founder and CEO of IntrCity SmartBus. \u201cThis includes decisions like what kind of layout a bus should have \u2014 should it be a full sleeper, or a hybrid with both sleepers and seats?\u201d<\/p>\n IntrCity SmartBus grew its revenue by 67% year-over-year to \u20b95 billion (approximately $57 million) in the last fiscal year. The startup projects revenue to surpass \u20b97 billion (around $79 million) in the current year. It has been \u201cEBITDA-positive\u201d for the past couple of years and aims to become fully profitable this year.<\/p>\n With the latest funding, the startup plans to go \u201cdeeper and wider\u201d through the country and enhance customer experience and safety, as well as upgrade its fleet management technology.<\/p>\n \u201cOne 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,\u201d Raizada told TechCrunch. \u201cWe want to make busses the preferred mode of travel in India.\u201d<\/p>\n More than 223 million intercity journeys were made in India in the financial year 2025, according to a recent report<\/a> by online bus ticketing platform RedBus. The sector added over 72,000 new intercity routes last year, along with approximately 6,400 new buses \u2014 expanding capacity by an estimated 265,000 daily seats.<\/p>\n Alongside IntrCity SmartBus, India is seeing a wave of new-age intercity bus startups such as ZingBus, LeafyBus, and FreshBus. European giant FlixBus also entered the Indian market<\/a> early last year, signaling growing traction in the space. Still, IntrCity views competition as secondary to execution.<\/p>\n \u201cIndia is a very different beast when it comes to road travel. If something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong,\u201d Rathi said. \u201cWe\u2019re not a network-first company. We\u2019re an operational-excellence-first company.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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