Go-Jek, the Indonesian startup that offers last mile transportation service, is reportedly all set to start its operations in India later this year. According to the reports, the company could start its bike taxi service in Gurgaon or South India in the second half of this year.
Haryana is one of the few states in India where the use of two-wheelers for commercial purposes is permitted, meaning that it is one of the few states where bikes can be used to provide taxi service. Thus, there are high chances that the service will initially be rolled out in Gurgaon.
It’s noteworthy that the company already has presence in India. Currently, Go-Jek has a development centre in Bangalore. The company set up its engineering centre in India last year after acquiring software engineering company C42 Engineering and Delhi-based CodeIgnition. At the time, the company had announced its plan of expanding the unit with hiring more people.
Last year, the company said that it is looking to expand its team members count in India. It was planning to hire 100 more engineers for its technology division in Bengaluru, including Full-stack Engineers, Data Scientists, Designers and Product Managers.
Go-Jek was founded in 2011 by Harvard graduate Nadiem Makarim. It is Indonesia’s first unicorn, and claims to have grown more than 900 times in just 18 months. While the company was started as a motorcycle-hailing transportation startup, it has expanded and diversified into food delivery, one-hour courier delivery, grocery delivery and trucks aggregation platform.
In India, there are many startups that provide bike taxi services. Ola and Uber — the leading ride-hailing service providers also have a bike-taxi offering. Other such service providers include Baxi, OneManTaxi, K Bike and Bikxie.