IntrCity SmartBus secures $30 million at a valuation of $140 million to deepen its grip on India’s intercity travel market

IntrCity SmartBus, a technology-enabled intercity bus platform in India, has raised $30 million in funding to expand its network across cities and small towns in the South Asian country. The all-stock Series D round, led by A91 Partners, values ​​the Noida-based startup at $140 million post-money.

Intercity travel in India is accelerating as more people migrate from small towns to big cities for work and education.

To meet this demand, New Delhi has significantly expanded the country’s highway infrastructure. It has a national highway network increased by more than 60% In the past decade, from 56,723 miles to 90,847 miles, according to Indian government data.

Railways, although expanding in scope, remain capacity-constrained and cannot keep up with the increasing demand for interstate travel. This makes long-distance road travel a crucial alternative. However, state-run intercity bus services are limited and often lack reliability and comfort – a gap Inter City Smart Bus Aims to fill.

Unlike traditional operators, IntrCity SmartBus operates on an asset-light model by partnering with local bus owners and equipping their vehicles with special devices for real-time tracking, co-founder and president Kapil Raizada said in an interview.

The startup also centralizes ticketing and route planning through its digital platform, which helps determine service frequency, meeting points, boarding stations and even seating configurations based on demand.

To ensure safety and consistency, IntrCity places trained employees — called “captains” — on board each bus, Raizada told TechCrunch. Most vehicles have restrooms, and the company has also created air-conditioned boarding lounges staffed by cabin crew to enhance the pre-departure experience.

“All of our buses are connected to the cloud,” he noted. “There is a bus operating system, which we built in-house, which monitors and manages a lot of parameters, including CCTV, sound and temperature levels.”

Founded in 2019, IntrCity SmartBus started as an online train ticket booking platform under the RailYatri brand. This entry point gave the team early insights into intercity travel behavior and unmet demand in road mobility, Raizada said.

He added that RailYatri today contributes only about 10% of the startup’s total revenue, while the SmartBus business represents the remaining 90%.

IntrCity SmartBus operates about 600 daily bus trips, transporting between 20,000 and 25,000 passengers per day – approximately 700,000 per month. The platform works with over 50 local bus operators and operates trips averaging over 311 miles each. About 95% of its services are overnight, primarily catering to non-discretionary travel needs such as business, education or essential appointments.

The startup’s typical passengers range in age from 20 to 45, including small business owners, coaches, government officials, sales professionals, and students.

The startup follows a hub-and-spoke model and has identified 15 to 16 major economic hubs across India. It operates in 13 to 14 such centers, covering 15 states. The network covers all of northern India – from Jammu to Uttarakhand – and a large part of the south, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

“A significant amount of data processing is done to understand what the consumer needs,” said Manish Rathi, co-founder and CEO of IntrCity SmartBus. “This includes decisions such as what type of design the bus should be – should it be a full sleeper, or a hybrid with both sleepers and seats?”

IntrCity SmartBus revenue increased 67% year-on-year to INR 5 billion (about US$57 million) in the last fiscal year. The startup expects its revenues to exceed 7 billion Indian rupees (about $79 million) this year. It has been “EBITDA positive” over the past two years and aims to become fully profitable this year.

With the latest funding, the startup plans to go “deeper and wider” across the country and enhance customer experience and safety, as well as upgrade its fleet management technology.

“One of the biggest challenges in bus mobility across the country is that people have concerns about buses. They are seen as being close to trains and flights,” Raizada told TechCrunch. “We want to make buses the preferred mode of travel in India.”

More than 223 million intercity trips were made in India in FY2025, according to a report Latest report Through the RedBus online bus ticketing platform. The sector added more than 72,000 new intercity routes last year, along with nearly 6,400 new buses – increasing capacity by an estimated 265,000 seats per day.

Besides IntrCity SmartBus, India is witnessing a wave of new-age intercity bus startups like ZingBus, LeafyBus and FreshBus. European giant FlixBus too Entered the Indian market Early last year, indicating growing traction in the space. However, Intercity views competition as secondary to execution.

“India is a completely different beast when it comes to road travel. If something goes wrong, it will go wrong,” Rathi said. “We are not a company that prioritizes network. We are a company that prioritizes operational excellence.”