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Deal Alert: TaxiForSure raises venture capital from Accel, Helion

From the Press Release:

Serendipity Infolabs Pvt. Ltd., which runs the online taxi booking site TaxiForSure.com, has raised venture capital funding from Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures. As part of the transaction Anand Daniel of Accel and Ritesh Banglani of Helion have joined the board of the company.

TaxiForSure.com was founded by IIM Ahmedabad graduates Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna in June 2011. As frequent business travelers, both co-founders used to find it extremely difficult to book taxis, and even after booking there was no guarantee the cabs would arrive at the right time and place. Co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna said, “On researching the market we found that on the one hand consumers struggle to find taxis reliably, and on the other taxi operators and drivers struggle to get enough customers every day. We realized that technology can play an effective matchmaker in this market”.

Anand Daniel of Accel Partners said, "As a consumer I have often faced the frustration of not finding a taxi when I needed it the most. TaxiForSure is a refreshingly better experience as one is assured of getting a taxi at the click of a mouse. And when our team met Aprameya and Raghu, their passion and energy to solve this big consumer need was clearly visible and convinced us to partner with them.”

Ritesh Banglani of Helion Advisors said "Our previous investments in Makemytrip and Redbus have shown us the tremendous potential of the online travel industry. We are excited to back TaxiForSure because they are tackling the next frontier in online travel by organizing a highly fragmented industry. The use of technology in this industry will benefit both consumers and taxi operators".
The service is currently operational in Bangalore and will be available in Delhi and Mumbai very soon.

About TaxiForSure

TaxiForSure.com is an aggregator of car rentals and taxis in India. They work with various taxi operators and enable them with technology to ensure that customers get an easily accessible, safe, reliable taxi ride ‘for sure’.
The company was founded by two IIM Ahmedabad graduates Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna. They started operations in June 2011 and have since enabled bookings in Bangalore predominantly. Expansion plans are on the cards and would be servicing all major cities in the near future.
Customers can book local point to point, local packages, outstation and airport transfer taxis, across various car types, by logging on to www.taxiforsure.com or by calling 080 6060 1010.

For more information, visit www.taxiforsure.com

About Accel
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel.
Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including 99designs, Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, BBN, Bonobos, Braintree,Brightcove, Cloudera, ComScore, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook,Fusion-IO, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak, Lookout, Macromedia, metroPCS, MoPub, OPOWER, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech,Rapt, Real Networks, Redback, Responsys, Riverbed, Spotify, Squarespace, SunRun, Trulia, UUNet,Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra. In India, Accel hasmade investments in companies such as Babyoye, enStage, Exclusively.in,Flipkart, Healthcare Magic, Kaatizone, Letsbuy, Myntra, MuSigma, Perfint,Virident, QwikCilver, Deeksha, FreshDesk, Zansaar.com and Vinculum.
For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accel.

About Helion

Helion is a multi-stage, India-focused venture fund with over $600 million under management. The fund invests in businesses that are technology-powered or catering to the Indian consumer services space. The focus sectors of investment include - internet, mobile, technology products,outsourcing, Healthcare, education, retail services and financial services. The fund's investors are well-respected global institutions including top tier university endowment funds, sovereign funds, foundations, pension funds, family offices and Fund of funds. The fund and its portfolio companies are advised by an experienced and industry renowned team of professionals based in India and includes Sanjeev Aggarwal, Ashish Gupta, Kanwaljit Singh, Rahul Chandra and R Natarajan.
For more information visit www.helionvc.com

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