Uber has led a US$10 million Series B into Carrum Mobility, its largest Uber Black fleet partner in India, at a post-money valuation of INR 16 billion, about US$168 million, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday. It is the second time Uber has written a cheque to the company. In January 2026 it put in US$7 million at a post-money valuation of INR 6 billion, about US$63 million. The valuation has risen from INR 6 billion to INR 16 billion since January, and Uber’s stake now stands at a mid-teens percentage.

Karan Jain founded Carrum in 2024. A former McKinsey consultant, Jain previously built Revv, which CarDekho bought in 2023, and CarDekho is an investor in Carrum as well. Carrum runs about 5,100 cars today and wants to be at roughly 11,000 within a year. More than 18,000 drivers have joined the platform in six cities so far: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Kolkata. Chennai is next on the list.

Revenue for the year to March 2026 came in at INR 2.33 billion, about US$24.5 million, nearly four times the INR 620 million of the year before, and the company closed the year with a net profit of INR 70 million. Its borrowing costs fell by about 40% over the same period. Carrum now puts its annualised revenue run rate at INR 400 crore and says it has made money every month since it opened, Entrepreneur India reported. The same report sizes the round at about INR 96 crore.

Carrum’s cars are split by Uber product. About 70% are hatchbacks on Uber Go, 10% are sedans on Uber Premier and 20% are SUVs, most of them on Uber Black, which is what makes the company Uber’s largest Black fleet partner in India. The relationship is not exclusive on paper. Jain told TechCrunch that Carrum has no plans at present to put its cars on rival platforms.

Jain said the new money would pay for entry into more cities, further work on Carrum’s technology and continued investment in the premium end of the service. Aditya Kapoor, director of supply at Uber India and South Asia, said Carrum had run a tight and disciplined operation, and that the investment would add better cars to Uber’s platform and support its premium tier.

Travel startup funding: the week’s other deals

Carrum’s round arrived in a strong week for Indian venture funding. Startups in the country pulled in US$321.9 million across 20 deals in the week to 11 September, an 82.4% jump on the US$176.5 million of the week before, according to Inc42’s weekly count. Carrum was the only travel-tech name on that list. Two other travel deals crossed the desk this week:

• Golden Horizon, the 300-guest sailing cruise ship built by the Brodosplit yard in Croatia, has found a buyer. A Swiss shipping company with a fleet of about 100 vessels has agreed to pay EUR 110 million for the ship, Travel And Tour World reported this month, citing Croatian press. The contract keeps the buyer’s name private.
• In China, CSTS Enterprises and ShanKai Sports have formed CSTS Hospitality, a joint venture aimed at premium sports hospitality, VIP travel and corporate hosting across China and the rest of Asia, according to Travel Daily News Asia.

Three facts from the Carrum deal matter to anyone buying ground transport in India. Uber now owns a mid-teens stake in the fleet that carries its premium passengers in six cities. That fleet intends to more than double within a year. And its founder has said it will not supply Uber’s rivals for now.

Key takeaway

Ground transport supply in India is being bought, not just contracted, and the platform that sells the ride now part-owns the cars. Hotels, airlines and OTAs selling airport transfers and chauffeur products in India should expect premium car supply and its pricing to be set increasingly by the platform rather than by the fleet. We would lock in transfer rates and capacity for the coming peak season now, and line up a second supplier in each city before Carrum reaches 11,000 vehicles.

The post Carrum raises US$10 million from Uber at a US$168 million valuation appeared first on TravHQ.

Last week, police in Tempe, Arizona, released dash cam footage showing the final seconds before an Uber self-driving vehicle crashed into 49-year-old pedestrian Elaine Herzberg, who died at the hospital shortly afterward.

While Herzberg is visible for less than two seconds in the camera footage, she might have become visible earlier to a human driver, since human eyes are better at picking out details in low-light situations. The police also released internal dash cam footage showing the car’s driver, Rafaela Vasquez, in the seconds before the crash. Vasquez can be seen looking down toward her lap for almost five seconds before glancing up again and realizing what is about to happen.

This is not the first collision involving a self-driving vehicle. Other crashes have involved Ubers in Arizona, a Tesla in ‘autopilot’ mode and many others in California. While it is still not clear as to who is to be blamed for the latest incident, most of the other crashes were due to human error.

Image source: ReadWrite

Why do autonomous vehicles crash? The first cause is when the sensors don’t detect what is happening around the vehicle. In the case of Herzberg, she was walking with a bicycle across a poorly lit roadway. About 1.4 seconds elapse between the time when Herzberg starts to become visible and the video’s final frame. Each car and each sensor works differently. In some, GPS may work only with a clear view of the sky or the camera may function properly only with ample light. Researchers aren’t clear about the ‘ideal’ set of sensors in an autonomous vehicle, and can’t keep adding more and more to the fleet because of cost limitations.

The second cause is when the vehicle encounters a situation that the software didn’t plan for. Much like human drivers, self-driving cars also make many decisions at any given second. So, when a self-driving car sees something it’s not programmed to handle, it becomes difficult to assess what is going to happen next. So, the challenge for programmers is to combine information from all sensors to create an accurate representation of the surroundings. If that doesn’t happen, the vehicle can’t take a call.

Before we can release autonomous vehicles on the road completely, they need to be programmed with a whole set of instructions about dealing with the out-of-the-ordinary, and plan for extreme adverse situations. A human driver, for instance, might even break a few traffic rules to save lives. The autonomous car needs to be taught how to do the same instead of waiting or the situation to pass.

Additionally, self-driving cars must be taught to understand their surroundings and the context. In the crash involving Herzberg, the car should have been tested and rated based on how well it performed difficult tasks, including assessing danger in fraction of a second. This is a lot like a human driving test, but that is how it should be if the two have to co-exist safely on the road.

Another approach to this could also be explicitly stating rules in formal logic, like how nuTonomy, which is running an autonomous taxi pilot in cooperation with authorities in Singapore, is doing. NuTonomy’s approach to controlling autonomous vehicles is based on a rules hierarchy. Top priority goes to rules such as “don’t hit pedestrians”, followed by “don’t hit other vehicles” and “don’t hit objects”. Rules such as “maintain speed when safe” and “don’t cross the centreline” get a lower priority.

Image source: The Verge

Learning how to drive is an ongoing process for both humans and their autonomous cars, as both adapt to new situations, road rules and technology. Time will tell the better approach, but for now, the research still has a long way to go.

The post Driverless cars still have a long way to go appeared first on TravHQ.

Every now and then, Uber and its counterparts are under fire from the drivers over shrinking incentives and dropping earnings. This isn’t something unique to US or India or any other market but rather a widespread problem. While these companies call them independent contractors, they have a tight web around them to get them to behave like employees, except without the benefits. This argument has broken out on multiple occasions and has seen multiple courts.

The core problem here is that these transportation providers aren’t really driving sharing. Rather they are operating a tightly controlled peer to peer marketplace where they providers have a little say. The driver partners associated with the platform are providing the service and creating value for the platform but they have grown to believe that they don’t necessarily get rewarded in proportion to their contribution to the system. According to them (and many others) the platform holds too much power. Arguments vary around the same when you switch perspectives but the situation exists.

Over the past few years, blockchain technology has found its way into multiple industries and some interesting solutions have been proposed already. For instance, SITA, along with ShoCard, is looking at it as a way to authenticate travellers at airport without having to put the data in a central spot. Bitcoin is a very good example of how effective and elegant blockchain technology can be. It can enable the exchange of data in a secure yet decentralised manner without the need of an authority or intermediary.

There have been attempts by disgruntled Uber drivers in many countries to create their own Uber alternatives but is that the solution? It puts more power in the control in the hands of providers and at the end of the day, an imbalance is created. Blockchain technology can possibly change that and they sound really promising in theory. Instead of one major party holding the power, the infrastructure is distributed among multiple users of the system.

The possibility isn’t just limited to theory. In fact there have been some attempts in this direction already. There are car sharing platforms like Lazooz and ArcadeCity which operate somewhat like Uber without using a centralised operator. The code deployed on blockchain network manages the interactions between drivers and users and there are tokens to reward drivers who contribute to the platform. Higher contribution by drivers pushes up their influence on the platform and boost their ability to benefit from the growth of platform.

It is often talked about how Airbnb is the largest accommodation company without owning any property or how Uber is the largest transportation company without owning any vehicles. Blockchain technology could create room for networks that are not only asset light but also decentralised. There are similar attempts being seen in accommodation and logistics space as well. Something similar called Mycelia was also proposed for music licencing.

It is not feasible at this point as the inherent challenges of blockchain technologies will have to be worked out. Having a real world impact, there will be some sort of third party required to deal with the ground challenges and also to address liability issues. Moreover, the balance can be skewed until there is a huge network to minimise the associated risks.

This could be a step towards true sharing economy while allowing the stakeholders to play a bigger role than the current systems. These are still the very early days and it is quite possible that we will see entire new kind of challenges here with scale. What are your thoughts on this? Do share with us.

The post Blockchain could be the answer to sharing economy woes appeared first on TravHQ.

While Uber gained traction in early days with the idea of letting people use their vehicles to give rides and make money, things were always much different in India. Uber and its local rival Ola work with vehicles that have commercial licences. Now however, the government is opening up to the idea of allowing private vehicles to be used with ride sharing platforms and is reportedly assessing the impact of the same.

While this appears to be a positive step, the impact might not entirely be positive. The objective here is to reduce congestion and the impact on environment with ever increasing number of vehicles. Allowing private cars on the platform would make more cars available for catering to ride requests making it more accessible and could, in turn, motivate more people to ditch their vehicles and rely on sharing services for transportation.

However, this would cause trouble for Uber and Ola with their current fleet of drivers. The driver partners have already been pressurising the companies to stop shrinking incentives and have been expressing their inability to pay for even car ownership in some cases. There are stricter regulations and considerably higher costs associated with commercial vehicles which means in its current form, the system would favour private vehicles. And while the objective is also to cut down on emissions, it is also worth mentioning that in some parts, Uber/Ola vehicles run only on CNG and no diesel powered cabs are allowed to operate. The same should also apply strictly to private vehicles because of the environmental concerns. However, the infrastructure to cater to CNG vehicles is still very limited in terms of capacity and presence.

To add to that, the attractive earnings resulted in a surge in the number of commercially registered small hatchbacks and sedans. It is not uncommon to find dozens of yellow plate cars waiting for the next ride during off peak hours. A fraction of them are novice, unskilled drivers lured by the higher potential payout compared to whatever else they were doing. This situation could have been avoided by opening up to the idea while the government was resisting the expansion of Uber and Ola despite a broken urban transportation system.

There are other challenges as well. Security is the biggest concern of them all as entry barriers for drivers are lowered. Another question is if this would really get car owners to share their vehicles or if this would just be another channel for cab operators to expand their fleet at lower costs. But this could also be the start of a change in transportation. If the trials work out fine, it could also inspire relaxation in car sharing regulations making it easier for rental businesses and thus for the masses to share vehicles.

The post India opening up to the idea of sharing privately owned vehicles, but is it too late already? appeared first on TravHQ.

Travis Kalanick has stepped down from his role as the CEO of Uber. Following a series of controversies and a lawsuit from Waymo, Kalanick had already taken a leave of absence. He also planned to assume fewer responsibilities on joining back. Now however, The New York Times reports that due to the demand by multiple investors, Travis Kalanick is stepping down from his role.

The news comes on the back of multiple high-profile departures from the company due to a variety of reasons, because of which, multiple leadership positions were left vacant. Uber has been taking steps to address the challenges in ways, including the recent hiring of Harvard Business School professor Fances Frei as SVP of leadership and strategy. The hiring was one of the many steps towards a serious change in company culture and the image it reflects on the outside. Recently Uber announced ‘180 days of change’ to make changes that would go towards improving the experience of driver partners working with Uber. This was accompanied by the addition of a tipping option, something the driver partners have been demanding and was offered by home rival Lyft.

According to the news report, earlier on Tuesday, five of Uber’s major investors demanded that the chief executive resign immediately. The investors made their demand through a letter titled ‘Moving Uber Forward’ and it was delivered to Travis Kalanick while he was in Chicago. Uber’s board said in a statement that with the chief executive stepping down, the company will have room to fully embrace a new chapter in Uber’s history. The shareholders that demanded the change included Benchmark, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Menlo Ventures and Fidelity Investments. Together they own over a quarter of the Uber’s stock and about 40 percent of the voting power.

The topic of the resignation of the chief executive has been raised on multiple occasions followed by the question of who may take over. Reportedly, it is also demanded that Mr. Kalanick support a board-led search committee for a new chief executive. He will remain on Uber’s board of directors.

Source: The New York Times

The post Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigns appeared first on TravHQ.

Saying that Uber is going through a rough patch so far this year might be an understatement. One of the most aggressive players in the ground transportation game has been on the defensive owing to an array of issues that cropped up. From high profile exists to the Waymo lawsuit and everything in between, Uber has been facing hurdles and the competition has been keeping the momentum to gain.

India, being a major market for Uber, will also bear the consequences of all the disruptions. Particularly the recent exit of Emil Michael will affect decisions related to investments in India. Amidst this, Ola has reportedly raised about USD 50 million from New York-based hedge fund Tekne Capital Management LLC, as part of its ongoing funding round. Economic Times quoted people closer to the development saying that the investment would push the valuation of Ola up to around USD 3.65 billion from USD 3.5 billion earlier this year. The valuation was down from USD 4.8 billion after the previous round in August last year. It is also reported that Ola might be in conversation with more investors to add more funds to this round, possibly to quickly cover ground while Uber is distracted.

In other part of the world, Careem, its rival operating across 80 cities across the Middle East, has raised another USD 150 million to close the USD 500 million Series E round announced in December. The latest tranche of funding is led by Dubai’s Kingdom Holding. Along with some VCs, German automaker Daimler also participated. Car companies have been actively joining the sharing ecosystem in ways and Daimler particularly has even made acquisitions in this space. Careem raised $350 million from investors including Japan’s Rakuten Inc. and Saudi Telecom Co. when it announced the investment back in December 2016. Careem plays on an even bigger opportunity as currently, Uber and Careem account for just one percent of the potential transportation market.

With these developments rolling in, Uber will have to face heightened challenge on multiple fronts once it has dealt with its internal issues.

Source: ET, Bloomberg

The post Uber rivals fetch investments to attack while it deals with massive hurdles appeared first on TravHQ.

The Waymo lawsuit hasn’t already been looking good for Uber and now, Waymo has filed new claims in the lawsuit. Waymo alleged that Uber held back information about the LiDAR systems it is using in development of driverless cars. The lawsuit was already a twisted affair with events going back by years.

Earlier, Uber revealed that their system isn’t the same as Waymo and they are using off the shelf LiDAR systems by Velodyne because their own system, code-named Fuji, isn’t ready yet. This was probably one of the rare occasions when a major tech company accepted that it is not the best at something. Now Waymo claims that Uber worked on another system that copies the design of Waymo system closely and uses a similar single lens system.

Waymo also claimed that Uber participated in the cover up to prevent the court from knowing about the second system. Uber lawyer on the other hand claims that the second system was never developed into a full prototype and ended up at some unassembled parts which were shown to Waymo.

TechCrunch reports that Waymo learned of the second system during an Uber employee’s deposition on April 13. The employee who previously worked for Google and 510 Systems told lawyers that he worked on two systems for Otto.

Amidst all this, Levandowski, the ex-Googler and Otto founder who is at the centre of this lawsuit hasn’t said anything yet. He asserted his Fifth Amendment rights and hasn’t addressed the allegations.

Source: TechCrunch

The post Waymo now accused Uber of covering up information about a LiDAR system appeared first on TravHQ.

After running a nine month long pilot, Uber has launched a new product building on top of its Uber for Business platform for the enterprise space. Uber Central, the new addition, allows companies to offer on demand transportation at a large scale from a single dashboard.

The dashboard is built within existing Uber for Business platform and a single user can choose to book, manage and pay for multiple rides across different routes. Booking a ride doesn’t require the rider to have the Uber app or an Uber account or even a smartphone. Just a basic feature phone would do the job as the riders get a text message with the driver details and URL with the location of car. Everything else like pickup point, drop off point, ride category and payment is taken care of from the dashboard.

During the pilot, Uber worked with over 8,000 companies including The Leela Palaces Hotels and Resorts and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Uber for Business did a very good job of giving companies an option to easily provide transportation for their employees. While it works for employees, brands can’t really use the same to provide transport for their customers or clients leaving plenty of room for fleet owners to partner and serve them. Uber Central could very well change things and give companies a more efficient alternative.

Hotels often have their own limited fleet that they use to pick and drop guests. Similar story with event organisers. In both the cases, fraction of the fleet is often unused at times and is dispatched from one location or a small number of locations for rides. With Uber Central, such businesses can skip on having a fleet or a number of cabs hired for an event and can simply create rides as and when required. Along with the flexibility for demand, this will also enable for quicker service as well. The value this new addition offers could cause some serious trouble for existing fleet operators working with companies. It will be interesting to watch how they respond.

Blog post

The post Will Uber Central hurt corporate cab services in India? appeared first on TravHQ.

Uber isn’t close to an IPO yet and doesn’t really need to share its numbers publically. However, with all the negativity clouding the brand, it needed to show that not everything is bad with it. Uber has shared with Bloomberg that its revenue is growing faster than the losses in hope to send the message that the business is on the right trajectory.

In 2016, the gross bookings doubled to USD 20 billion according to Uber. The net revenue was USD 6.5 billion with adjusted net losses of USD 2.8 billion (excluding China business which was sold to Didi).

This is the first time Uber has given the public a look at its numbers. Previously some data about its financial performance was leaked but this time, it is likely that Uber decided to show its cards to send the message that the negative headlines and negative consumer sentiments haven’t hurt its business. Over the past few months, multiple top level executives departed the company amidst news of toxic work culture and a lawsuit from Alphabet’s self driving car division Waymo.

The gross bookings increased 28 percent in last quarter of 2016 generating USD 2.9 billion in revenue which was up by 74 percent from third quarter. Over the same period, the losses increased by 6.1 percent to USD 991 million.

Over the past year, the losses have grown at a slower pace when compared to the revenues however, the number is still very big. Last August, Uber sold its China business which was turning out to be a costly affair accounting for about USD 1 billion in losses there last year. It is estimated that Uber has taken hit of atleast USD 8 billion since it was founded in 2009. Uber currently claims to have USD 7 billion cash in hand along with USD 2.3 billion credit facility.

Source: Bloomberg

The post Uber’s gross bookings were 2X in 2016 with $2.8 bn in losses appeared first on TravHQ.

To further add to Uber’s woes, the ride hailing company has been banned from operating in Italy. The news comes after a Rome judge ruled against Uber in favour of Italy’s major taxi associations. With this, all the Uber’s ride services will be blocked from operating and the company can’t advertise the same.

Uber, of course isn’t pleased with the ruling and its lawyers are planning to appeal against it claiming that the government can’t waste time staying anchored to old systems instead of gaining from new technologies. Uber has 10 days to either shut shops in Italy or appeal the ruling. In case it does neither, it will face fines running upto USD 10,600 per day.

It isn’t the first time Uber has faced such situation and has faced pushback from local taxi operators almost all over the world and the situation is not likely to change anytime soon. Earlier this year, the company paused its services in Taiwan, not under direct orders, but mounting pressure from the government and hefty fines being imposed on the driver partners.

In other news, Uber has responded in the lawsuit with Waymo and has shared that it began developing its LIDAR technology almost a year before Levandowski was hired at Uber. It also shared that the LIDAR sensors being used by the company are purchased off the shelf from Velodyne and don’t copy the Waymo design. You can read about the series of events in full detail here.

Source: Reuters

The post Italy adds to the compounding Uber problems appeared first on TravHQ.