BluSmart's plan to beat Ola & Uber 🚙

5-year-old EV cab startup is changing rules of the game⚡️

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The BluSmart Story 💫

With ₹550 Crores in revenue last year, BluSmart is going after the ₹58,000 Crore ride market. In last 5 years, Blusmart has become Southeast Asia's biggest Electric Ride-hailing company, is aiming for profitability in the next year, and is giving 2 big giant a run for their money. We cover this in depth —

But first, how did it start?

The company was started by a trio — Punit Goyal and the Jaggi Brothers (Anmol & Puneet Jaggi). All had a decade-long renewable energy experience. Jaggi brothers also run Gensol Group, a ₹900 crore solar company. Punit had run a solar company, PLG Power, that shut down. The trio saw a sweet spot between India’s ride-hailing market & the EV movement. And voila! 

The BluSmart Founder Trio

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What did BluSmart crack then?

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Non-aggregator insight.

Ola and Uber use the Airbnb-style model—drivers own the cars, register on the apps, and then match with riders. The downside? Drivers often feel unhappy with high commissions (20-30%) or flat fees (new model in autos) and can be unprofessional since it's their car, their rules.

BluSmart flipped the script to lease cars instead. Drivers become full-time employees with a salary, not gig workers paid per ride. This approach solved:

• Customer experience by aligning drivers’ incentives as employees.

• Customer safety as all Blusmart owned had panic buttons.

• Hooking customers with the famous “No-Surge & No Cancellation” policy.

40% of BluSmart drivers are ex-Ola & Uber employees — who switched apps for better stable salaries. (Source: GrowthX Wireframe)

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Charging infra insight.

Blusmart is not only looking at the ride-hailing model. There’s a bigger plan cooking — they have 3 verticals to their business. The most interesting one is how they’re building charging stations - have 50 charging hubs — an opportunity for the next 5-10 years ahead. The chain is simple:

1. Run ~7,600 EVs enough to get gains of an EV and economies of scale.

2. Support charging with own hubs, ensuring every cab gets charged asap.

3. Eventually, sell charging as a service, once they’ve mastered the infrastructure and fully served their own fleet. India would need way more charging stations to solve for “vehicle to charging station ratio” with the ongoing aggressive EV push by the govt. 

Blusmart’s 3 Subsidiaries (Source: GrowthX Wireframe)

Go super niche first.

Blusmart started with only EV cars and with planned bookings — where you have to book 20-30 minutes in advance. The logic? Don’t try to serve everyone or you'll get crushed by the big players. Other companies are doing the same: Rapido focuses on 2-wheelers, Namm Yatri on autos, and Shoffr targets luxury cars.

Did similar for cities. Since 68% of India’s mobility market exists in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, Blusmart targetted Delhi-NCR first, then expanded to Bengaluru and Mumbai.

The loop is simple: Focus on one small problem → Target one small market → Become the best in solving it → Expand to other markets.

Macro view of new entrants’s approach. (Source: GrowthX Wireframe)

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That’s a wrap for now. we launched a new episode of GrowthX Wireframe, where we cover BluSmart in depth.

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