FreshBus is an electric vehicle bus startup backed by Ixigo and based in Bengaluru. The company was founded by Sudhakar Reddy Chirra, who previously created bus aggregator Abhibus (acquired by ixigo in August 2021). FreshBus builds and operates electric buses. The company remained in a pre-revenue stage and reported a loss of Rs 2.1 crore for the fiscal year ended March 2023; it has not yet submitted FY24 results. FreshBus has raised capital to date of roughly $9 million and appears to be continuing to raise funds. Media reports estimate a post-allotment valuation of about $20 million for this round, and the company was reportedly in talks to raise up to Rs 100 crore. Fresh Bus operates an electric inter-city bus service with an existing fleet of 20 electric buses. The company announced it has raised Rs 7.5 crore in a second seed funding round. Investors in the round include Kunal Shah, Sudarshan Venu and Deepak Garg. The funds will be used for technology development, workforce expansion and to improve operational efficiency. Fresh Bus plans to introduce 150 new buses and 10 new routes and is targeting revenue of Rs 20 crore by December 2024. In November 2022 the company raised Rs 16 crore in seed funding from Ixigo. FreshBus is a Bengaluru-based electric inter-city bus operator that plans to deliver premium, environment-friendly long-distance travel through a full-stack smart-bus platform. Its service features noise-free air-conditioned cabins, comfortable seating, uniformed crew, IoT-enabled real-time air-quality and temperature monitoring, security CCTVs, personal charging docks, Wi‑Fi, real-time tracking and alcohol checks. The company says a single FreshBus can cover up to 375 km on a single charge and will save over 90,000 liters of diesel while reducing close to 200 tonnes of CO2 in a year (equivalent, the company claims, to the effect of almost 10,000 trees). FreshBus will commence services simultaneously from Hyderabad and Bengaluru with an initial fleet of 24 electric buses and expected to announce its first operational routes in March 2023. The startup plans to scale operations to over 1,000 buses pan‑India within the next 2–3 years. The company was founded by Sudhakar Reddy Chirra, who is serving as founder and CEO.

Total raised

$9M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Jul 2024