India’s Uber-rival BluSmart appears to suspend service in wake of EV loan probe

Summary

BluSmart, India’s all-electric cab-hailing startup that was once seen as an emerging rival to Uber, appears to have suspended service in some cities just as the country’s market regulator launched a probe into Gensol Engineering, the publicly listed company that shares two of its co-founders. The cab service, which had been operating in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, no longer shows available slots to many riders in these cities. Delhi Airport also issued an advisory that BluSmart’s service had been temporarily suspended. Some affected customers have also raised concerns about accessing the money stored in their BluSmart wallets now that the service is unavailable. The sudden unavailability comes just a day after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) launched an investigation into Gensol Engineering, which shares BluSmart’s co-founders, Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi. The regulator accused the co-founders of redirecting substantial loan amounts for personal use, including buying luxury real estate on the outskirts of India’s capital. Following the market regulator’s orders, the Jaggi brothers stepped down from their managerial positions on Wednesday. “They are no longer participating in the management of the Company as per SEBI’s instructions, effective immediately,” Gensol said in its filing (PDF) to the Indian stock exchanges. Despite its unavailability to riders, the BluSmart board did not share any updates with its investors until Wednesday, TechCrunch has learned. “It is really surprising to us that the service is unavailable. It seems to be a rub-off effect of what has happened with Gensol,” a BluSmart investor told TechCrunch. The investor said that in early April, BluSmart disclosed that it hit 8.4 billion Indian rupees ($98 million) in the annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2024, generating 700 million Indian rupees in monthly revenue. The startup also informed investors that its fleet size grew to about 8,700 EVs, up from the 6,000 ...