Baxi Taxi

The Buddies of Gurgaon-based bike-as-a-taxi service provider, Baxi, have turned foes
of the company after the terms on which they were onboarded were abruptly changed.
Recent moves made by the company have allegedly resulted in the drastic decline
in the drivers monthly income, thereby infuriating them. A number of these
drivers are protesting the move and have stopped working.
We spoke to a number of drivers to understand their issue. The drivers working with
Baxi fall under two brackets; ones who drive the companys bikes (salary around INR
13,000) and the others are personal riders who own their bikes (salary about INR 25,000).
Apart from their basic salaries, these drivers used to earn extra per day from their rides
and other incentives and the company never kept a tab on it. However, of late, it has
started keeping a tab on the drivers earnings and implemented a rule
that each driver would earn only their salary and not a dime more.
For example, if a driver with a salary of INR 13,000 earns about INR 8000 extra, the
company will pay him INR 5000 as salary to make his monthly income to be INR 13,000,
instead of paying him his entire salary of INR 13,000. So this driver ends up earning only
INR 13,000 per month (his fixed salary), instead of earning INR 21,000.
One of the jilted drivers told us that initially the company simply wanted to increase its
driver base by attracting these drivers with the lure of high earning potential. Now that
these drivers have become accustomed to earning big bucks with Baxi, the company
has put an earning cap on them. He believes the company is

swaying away from its commitment and is not happy with it; neither are his
colleagues.
Baxi has a fleet of its own bikes and outsources the others from its contractors. Each of
these contractors owns a fleet of bikes that are used by Baxi. One of these contractors
told us he is not happy with this move as his earning potential has also been reduced. He
avers that he will be ending his partnership with the company and move his fleet of 210
bikes to another bike-as-a-taxi service provider in Gurgaon.
Another driver told us that the company was planning some sort of function on the
1st of March for its whole team, including the drivers. The drivers were planning to raise
their concerns during this event, but it was cancelled.
To ward off basic confusion, none of the Baxi buddies are our
employees, so there is no question of a salary at all, let alone a
change, a company spokesperson told Inc42.
According to this spokesperson, They are all independent entrepreneurs and we help
them get started. We had a financial subsidy in place for people, which
has now been tapered off as planned and we are moving forward
with our performance-based model as was always the plan. A tiny fraction of
the Baxi fleet, who want the subsidy to continue are the ones creating this impression of
a change only 5% of our fleet is currently creating a stir.
The main thing to note is that with any organisation, there are good performers and
there are laggards. The Baxi incentive is performance-based and so the ones who arent

performing are the ones who dont want to be evaluated based on that. Nothing has
really changed from our perspective and work is on in full swing,
the company added.
Woes dont end here for this young company. Sensing immense opportunities in this
space, the two goliaths of the commute-tech industry Uber and Ola entered this
market on Thursday. Ola introduced its bike taxis in Bangalore, hours after Uber
launched uberMOTO its on-demand motorbike taxi service in Indias Silicon Valley.
It seems like everyone wants a bite out of the lucrative moto-taxi pie, which, according to
World Moto Inc (a leading Thailand-based company in the moto-taxi industry), is worth
$500 Mn globally. In India, this space turned highly crowded within a short span of time
about 6 players (Rideji, Baxi, Bikxie, MTaxi, Rapido & Hey Bob) entered this space in 2015
and about four of them have already raised funding.
Two wheeler taxi services are already popular in many countries across the world, like
Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Nigeria,
and Sweden.
Gurgaon-based 74 BC Technologies Pvt Ltd launched its bike-as-a-taxi service under the
brand name Baxi, around November last year, after obtaining permit from the
Government of Haryana. Started by Ashutosh Johri and Manu Rana, Baxi uses bikes to
offers affordable last-mile connectivity, from metro and bus stations to offices, colleges,
schools and residential areas. Baxis can be hailed directly from government allocated
stands, anywhere in the city, using its app.

Around end of November 2015, the company raised about $1.5 Mn (INR 10 Cr.) in a
seed round funding from friends and family. In the press release, announcing this
funding, the company said that it is confident to get permits from the transport
departments of three more states very soon and add 500 more bikes to its fleet. However,
currently its services are only available in Gurgaon and Faridabad.
Ashutosh divulged in this funding release that the company plans to raise a sizeable
amount (ranging between $25 to $30 Mn) in its next round of investment, and has
already received commitment for 50% of this amount from its existing investors.