Maha Shahzad, founder of BusCaro
How do ordinary Pakistanis get to work, school and shops every day? Start-up based in Karachi BusCarowhich today announced it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, believes it has the answer in a country where transportation options are often dangerous, unreliable or simply unaffordable.
BusCaro – one of its Urdu meanings is “to take the bus” – bridges the gap between Pakistan’s sketchy public transport and options such as taxis, rideshares and rickshaws, which are too expensive for the city. most people. The company, now present in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, has partnered with Pakistan’s 40,000 minivan and minibus drivers. It finds passengers for them by entering into agreements with partners such as employers and schools, guaranteeing them significant passenger numbers on key routes.
“When we fill the bus, the driver earns more than driving a few passengers, and the passenger gets a lower fare,” says Maha Shahzad, CEO of BusCaro, who founded the company in October 2022. “More importantly, the customer gets to their destination safely.
The latter point is a key one for Shahzad, who says Pakistani women in particular don’t feel safe traveling in public; Up to 85% of them report having been sexually harassed in such contexts, she explains. Men also need safer transportation options, she adds.
“We can’t even begin to empower and empower women if they can’t go to school or work safely,” says Shahzad. “A safe and affordable ride should be a basic human right. »
For Shahzad, the challenge has been to identify a model that allows him to deliver on this promise while building a commercially sustainable business. Having worked for ride-hailing app Careem and global mobility startup Swvl, she was painfully aware that traditional models in this market were either too expensive for most Pakistanis or were proving unviable. Swvl, for example, decided to close its operations in Pakistan last year.
According to Shahzad, using minibus and minivan drivers can be both affordable and cost-effective. She says a typical trip using BusCaro will cost the passenger – or the fare-paying partner – around 150 rupees. The same trip can cost 800 rupees in a ride-sharing vehicle or 1,400 rupees in a taxi, she says.
To deliver on its safety promise, BusCaro vets all its drivers by carrying out a background check before they are allowed to operate the services, as well as checking the good technical condition of their vehicles. Additional protections include a panic button built into the BusCaro app, which passengers can use to call for help, as well as technology that allows the company to track its vehicles while they are on a route.
There are other benefits to operating this way as well. BusCaro estimates that its alternative mode of transportation is already reducing Pakistan’s carbon emissions by more than 3 million kilograms each year. Shahzad expects this figure to increase over time – as passenger numbers increase, but also as Pakistan begins to invest in more electric vehicles for transportation.
With 20,000 bookings per day, BusCaro is now on track to become profitable in the first quarter of 2024, adds Shahzad. And the development potential is enormous: in the three cities in which the company operates, the target market amounts to 7 to 8 million passengers.
With financial markets drying up last year, Shahzad launched his business using his own savings, before a number of angel investors provided additional support. They were later joined by Orbit Startups, which has a proven track record of investing in game-changing companies in emerging and frontier markets across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas.
William Bao Bean, managing partner of Orbit Startups, says he was attracted to the company by its purpose as well as its growth potential. “Diversity and inclusion are difficult to achieve when women have to spend more than 30% of their salary getting to work safely and predictably,” he says. “We supported BusCaro because it allows women and men to book safe, inexpensive and efficient shared transportation to and from work, providing driving opportunities and opening up the economy as a whole. »
Orbit’s funding will help BusCaro invest in further enhancements to its technology stack, with Shahzad keen to create new features for passengers and partners as the company grows. The company also began considering international expansion.