Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has invested an undisclosed amount in Indian Railways travel app RailYatri.in. The app uses deep-analytics technology that makes intelligent predictions to help travellers make a decision for future train travel plans.
Apart from Nilekani, RailYatri's investors such as Helion Ventures, Omidyar Networks and Blume Ventures also participated in the fund-raising round by the company, Press Trust of India quoted RailYatri's statement as saying.
"What excited me about RailYatri is the fact that this is a new-age product made by Indians for Indians. The RailYatri app, which intelligently harnesses the power of smart phones, data and mobile payments, has a huge opportunity of impacting the lives of millions of travellers," Nilekani was quoted as saying by PTI.
According to reports, In June 2015, the rail app raised funds, which were led by Helion Venture partners, Omidyar Network and existing investors Blume Ventures and Ujama. Although RailYatri did not reveal the total amount it raised, it is believed that the firm raised about $3 million (approximately Rs. 20 crore).
The app uses a passenger's mobile phone GPS to predict a train's arrival or delay, provide platform number, coach details, booking confirmation for wait-listed passengers and PNR status and train status.
"We are honoured to have Nandan Nilekani as our investor. His passion and success in using technology to transform lives for the common man be it in Aadhaar project, which recently crossed a billion registration or the recent Unified Payments Interface (UPI), has been truly inspirational," Kapil Raizada, RailYatri.in co-founder, said.
The RailYatra app reportedly serves two million passengers per month, the app feature covers about 4,000 stations across the country. The app was founded by Manish Rathi, Sachin Saxena and Kapil Raizada in 2014, according to its website.
