BlaBlaCar, ride sharing service, may come to India

 In the recent past, we have witnessed entry of several radio taxi services in India, which have improved the transport experience for commuters. Now, French startup company BlaBlaCar is considering an entry in India, with its unique business model.

BlaBlaCar is an online ride sharing platform which connects people who have a common destination, so that they share a ride and reach their destination, in a cost effective manner. This ride sharing service is mainly for long distances where users can find others traveling to the same destination, on the company's website, and end up sharing the cost of their trip, by traveling together.

This Paris based company, founded in 2006, recently raised $100 million to expand its operations to emerging markets such as India, Brazil and Turkey, as well as to 12 European countries.

BlaBlaCar is currently active in Russia, Germany, Poland and eight other European countries. The company already has 250,000 members in Russia, in less than 6 months.

In India, services with a similar business model such as RidingO and SmartMumbaikar are already active for short distance commutes. It will be interesting to understand how BlaBlaCar will position themselves in India to gain trust of prospective users of the service.

Source