InDrive

History

2025: Purchase of a share in the "Near" service

InDrive bought a stake in the Kazakhstan grocery delivery service "Near." This deal became known in January 2025. The deal, carried out through the venture capital division of New Ventures, is aimed at supporting the growth of the company and strengthening its position in the e-grocery segment, emphasized InDrive without specifying details. Read more here

2024: Raising $150 million in investments

On March 14, 2024, the international taxi ordering service with Russian roots inDrive announced the attraction of additional investments in the amount of $150 million. The funds were allocated by venture investor General Catalyst, which in 2023 already provided inDrive with the same amount.

The money received inDrive plans to focus on accelerating growth, expanding the range of services provided, improving existing products and entering new markets. As of the beginning of 2024, inDrive operates in 46 countries and 749 cities around the world, according to the company's website. The number of mobile application installations reached 200 million, and the total number of trips - 2 billion. In 2023, the service launched in the United States: you can order a taxi in California.

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Фото: Unsplash

Receiving additional funds from General Catalyst gives us the opportunity to continue to grow rapidly and innovate while maintaining a strong financial position and flexibility. We are grateful to General Catalyst for the trust shown in our company, "says Dmitry Sedov, CFO of inDrive.

In 2021, the inDrive service raised $150 million from investment funds Insight Partners, Bond Capital and General Catalyst. Thus, the total funding from General Catalyst alone exceeded $300 million. InDrive said in an official statement that this strategic financial support will help the company expand the list of services provided and strengthen its global presence, while adhering to its main mission - "to combat social injustice and promote equal access to mobility services" around the world. At the end of 2023, inDrive revenue rose 54% on an annualized basis. The money raised is expected to provide an opportunity to further increase income.^[1]

2023

The founder of inDrive received citizenship of Kazakhstan

On December 2, 2023, Arsen Tomsky announced the receipt of Kazakh citizenship. The founder of the taxi service inDrive wrote about this in his Telegram channel. More. here

Reduction of 10% of the state

On August 1, 2023, information appeared that the international taxi aggregator InDrive (formerly InDriver) was forced to reduce the number of personnel. Approximately 10% of employees will fall under the dismissal program.

Passenger, intercity and freight service InDrive says it is providing services in 655 cities in 48 countries worldwide by early August 2023, but deployment to the U.S. is relatively slow. The number of workers exceeds 3,000 on a global scale. Thus, as part of the restructuring, at least 300 employees will lose their jobs.

International taxi aggregator InDrive will lay off approximately 10% of employees

To support sustainable growth in a volatile global economic environment, we have made the difficult decision to improve efficiency by reducing headcount by 10%. Despite the fact that many other large IT companies have already done this, we postponed this step until recently, but market volatility continues and the company is optimizing the state, representatives of InDrive said.

It is assumed that reducing the number of employees will help optimize the cost structure. The company froze the admission of new employees, as well as reduced the cost of corporate events, travel and training of employees.

The layoffs come after years of booming staff. InDrive CEO Arsen Tomsky in an interview with the Internet edition of the Stanford Higher School of Business stated that the number of employees of the company from 2019 to 2022 increased tenfold. In 2022 alone, the taxi aggregator hired an additional 1000 employees. However, in the context of the current macroeconomic situation and the crisis, it became clear that the state was overly inflated. Reduced workers will receive monetary compensation and other payments due.^[2]

Launch of a separate application in Russia

The inDrive taxi service has separated the Russian business into a new application called Drivee. In May 2023, it became available in the App Store and Google Play. Read more here.

Transfer of Russian business to a Kazakh company

The inDrive taxi ordering service transferred the Russian business to the Kazakh company Indels and decided to change the name of the platform in the Russian Federation and the CIS to Indels. This became known on April 10, 2023. Read more here.

Raising $150 million in investments

The inDrive taxi ordering service, founded in Yakutia, attracted $150 million in investments. This became known on February 20, 2023.

According to Bloomberg, in order to receive funds, the company resorted to an unusual method that "connects the repayment of debt with the results of operations." This avoided revaluation of value.

InDrive service was able to attract $150 million in investments

Given the fall in the market, we had to choose whether to offer equity or something that would allow us not to price the company. " Since we did not need money desperately, we decided to attract such funding, "said Dmitry Sedov, CFO of inDrive.

Funds received from the General Catalyst Group Management LLC fund. The money will be used to finance marketing activities and develop new services. According to Sedov, InDrive, which increased gross revenue by 88% in 2022 (exact figures were not disclosed), expects a positive cash flow in 2023. InDrive accounts for about one in eight installations of taxi calling applications in the world, in total in 2022 in all countries of the company's presence there were 61.5 million installations.

The General Catalyst Fund previously participated in a $150 million inDrive Series C investment round in 2021 led by Insight Partners. Then the company was valued at about $1.23 billion. Since then, monthly income has quadrupled, Sedov said.

The company also notes that in 2022 the service came to eight new countries and appeared in another continent - in. Australia In addition, inDrive arrived in,,,,, Argentina Bangladesh Georgia Lebanon Turkey as well as on and. Philippines Now with the Jamaica help of the service you can order a trip in 47 countries and 707 cities. In 2022, the company launched the inDrive service. Work where you can search for work by scrolling through the video to the right, if you like everything, or to the left, if the offer is not interesting.^[3]

2022

Russian taxi service inDrive launched in Sydney

In October 2022, it became known about the launch of inDrive in. This is Sydney the third Australian city to operate a taxi ordering service.

inDrive launched in Sydney! In a cult city with the famous opera house, the Harbor Bridge and attractions, - wrote the founder of the company Arsen Tomsky on his Facebook page y (owned by Meta, which is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation).

inDrive launched in Sydney

In March 2022, inDrive was first launched in Brisbane, Australia, and in Melbourne in June . The minimum cost of a trip in Sydney is $20. Next, the driver and passengers negotiate the fare for the route.

Based on feedback received by inDriver following the Brisbane launch and the interest the company has shown in Melbourne since before their launch, inDriver's Australia regional manager Mike Chauhan is optimistic about the future of inDriver in an already saturated Australian market.

We believe that our model contributes to justice and transparency, "Mike Chauhan said in a conversation with SmartCompany. - We noticed that people react very well to this.

According to him, by mid-2022, InDrive worked in more than 600 cities and 43 countries, and also had over 100 million users. Over 10 years, about 1.3 billion trips were made, he added. The company plans to continue its expansion in Australia.

Earlier, the founder of InDrive Arsen Tomsky, in a conversation with Forbes, attributed countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa and Kazakhstan to the key markets of the service. The CIS countries account for no more than 20% of the annual revenue of the service, Tomsky pointed out.

Successful international expansion, revenue diversification in many countries and high growth rates always contribute to increasing the company's valuation, he noted.

Name change

In early October 2022, the inDriver service announced a large-scale rebranding. The changes are already reflected on the company's website, a new logo is posted on pages on social networks. The organizer of passenger traffic changed its name: now it will be called inDrive, without the letter R at the end. The color of the logo has also changed. Salad was chosen as the main one.

The company counts down to rebranding on the official website - there are nine days left before it. Also waiting, a video is presented, which already includes the updated logo and slogan "People rule."

As the company itself explained in its Twitter blog, it is "changing to improve without changing its key values," and this, among other things, is "helping people" and "fair prices."^[4]

Transfer of some employees from Russia to Kazakhstan

The inDriver service moved some of its employees from Russia to Kazakhstan. This became known on May 4, 2022.

Kazakhstan is "the most optimal and stable place in the CIS," said the founder of the service Arsen Tomsky.

The company is transporting employees "as part of a project to develop regional hubs," other details were not disclosed.

In April 2022, Tomsky told Kazakhstan's Forbes that the company is developing divisions in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions. Kazakhstan is a large market for inDriver in the CIS, because it is "the most optimal and stable place in the region."

At the same time, Tomsky explained why Kazakhstan is a good place for the relocation of employees. The Russian language is used there for "interethnic communication," there are programs to support IT companies, and the country has a "rapidly developing stable economy."

On March 9, Tomsky announced the closure of his Yakut MEDIA Ykt.Ru, it has been operating since 1999. In May, he wrote in (Facebook recognized as an extremist organization and banned in Russia) that before the "special operation" he "believed in the theory of small business that everyone could do something, but all this in one day scattered into small fragments that could no longer be collected."

Russia's share in the main inDriver business is small and continues to decline, and the team will "become more and more international,"^[5] added].

2020: Appointment of Dmitry Sedov CFO and Board Member

On February 18, 2022, inDriver announced the appointment of Dmitry Sedov CFO and a member of the company's board of directors. Read more here.

2021: Raising $150 million, estimated at $1.23 billion

In September 2021, InDriver founder Arsen Tomsky announced that a few months earlier the company had raised $150 million and was valued at $1.23 billion. Investors in the passenger transportation service included Insight Partners (lead investor), Bond Capital and General Catalyst.

To maintain high growth rates, the company began the transformation from a ride-hailing application to a global multi-vertical, customer-centric platform. As part of this strategic shift, we are moving from a model of a closed, cohesive core team, mainly from one city, to a more open, broader and diversified international management team, while maintaining a high level of motivation, Tomsky wrote on his Facebook page.

InDriver raised $150 million

The message is about recruiting for leadership positions.

New investments will be aimed at growth in 35 current countries of the service presence, access to new countries, including developed countries, and new market segments, Tomsky explained. Also, investment resources will be used to strengthen the team, which grew from 600 people in July 2020 to 1,500 in July 2021. The company reported this to the Russian Venture Telegram channel, which publishes news about investments in Russian startups.

By September 2021, InDriver operates in more than 500 cities in 34 countries, and the number of trips, according to its own data, exceeded 1 billion. InDriver is one of the three most popular ridehailing services in the world in terms of monthly application installations.^[6]

2020

Raising $72 million

In February 2020, InDriver closed a $72 million round, in which the Bond Capital investment fund was in the lead. As a result of that transaction, the service was valued at $472 million.

Launch of the Russian taxi ordering service InDriver in Vietnam

In October 2020, it became known about the start of the inDriver taxi ordering service in Vietnam. About 260 cars and 300 motorcycles connected to it.

We are recording a very encouraging growth in terms of driver participation and the number of completed trips after the launch of our pilot program in Danang, Hoyan and Go Noi, says InDriver Operations Director Yegor Fedorov. - It shows that our services are very welcome by the population of Vietnam and gives us the opportunity to continue to offer our services in other cities of Vietnam. Today's launch also reaffirms our commitment to providing a more affordable alternative to services for Vietnam.

To ensure the safety of drivers and passengers using inDriver, the application has the function of exchanging information about the location of GPS users and travel details in real time with trusted contacts. The service also provides an emergency button that will connect passengers or drivers by the police in case of an emergency.

Russian taxi ordering service InDriver launched in Vietnam

Prior to its Vietnam launch, InDriver collected feedback on its use of the app and found that inDriver's fares for travel were more attractive compared to other ride-hailing services available in the city. For example, users can pay 20,000 dong ($0.9) for a car ride and 11,000 dong ($0.5) for a motorcycle ride from Vincom Plaza in Hue to Kuok Hock Institute, Hue with inDriver service.

InDriver car calling service is available within the border of Hue City and nearby suburbs. Currently, rate transactions can only be made in cash, further reducing travel costs by reducing transaction fees charged through credit cards or online payments. The inDriver app is available for free download on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.^[7]

2017: Attracting investment from Leta Capital

In September 2017, Leta Capital invested $5 million in InDriver. After entering the American market, inDriver raised another $10 million from Leta Capital.

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