Super Highway Labs Pvt. Ltd, which operates bus aggregation service Shuttl, has raised $18 million (Rs 127.7 crore at current exchange rates) in a Series C funding round.
The company received $6 million from Toyota Motor Corporation and the remaining from SMBC Trust Bank as a trustee of the Mirai Creation Fund II, The Economic Times reported. Toyota will own a 6% stake in Shuttl after this investment.
The Mirai fund is managed by Tokyo-based SPARX Group Co. Ltd. It counts Toyota and SMBC among its initial limited partners.
The latest investment takes the Shuttl’s total valuation at about $200 million (around Rs 1,419.54 crore), the report added.
VCCircle has reached out to Shuttl on the details of the investment and will update the report accordingly.
The startup, which was founded by Deepanshu Malviya and Amit Singh in 2015, provides shuttle services across more than 50 routes with about 600 buses, averaging around 30,000 rides a day. Shuttl also separately caters to corporates.
The latest reported capital raise comes after the startup raised $1.3 million (around Rs 9.2 crore) in venture debt from Trifecta Capital. That investment came three months after Trifecta provided $1 million to the Gurugram-based startup.
In July last year, Shuttl raised $11 million in a Series B round of funding from Amazon’s voice innovation investment arm Amazon Alexa Funds and Japanese firm Dentsu Ventures. Its last known external funding had taken place in 2015, when it raised $20 million in a Series A round from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia India and Times Internet Ltd.
Shuttl also inked an all-cash deal with Commut to absorb its local customers and driver partners for its expansion to southern India. Shuttl competes with well-funded players including ZipGo, which raised a big-ticket Series B round from the Essel Group last August.
Cab hailing company Ola was also a prominent player until it shut down its bus pooling business, Shuttle, last February.