Founded by Rakesh Munnanooru in 2016,  employee transportation company WhistleDrive has raised Rs. 72 crores from Chicago based Colosseum Group. The Hyderabad based company at present provides technology-enabled fleet services for corporates and operates more than 700 fleet across three cities, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. 

“Corporations are increasingly looking for automated data-driven solutions to ease the process of transportation. The idea is to bring in significant improvement in operational efficiency and achieve overall cost minimization,” said Rakesh Munnanooru, Founder & CEO, WhistleDrive in an interview with People Matters. 

Currently several companies, including ADP, Invesco and Hitachi Consulting, use WhistleDrive. Powered by AI, WhistleDrive aims to help more corporates to automate the entire transportation process resulting in significant cost savings and also improve employee satisfaction via a reliable, comfortable and secure ride to work. 

Earlier, WhistleDrive had raised Rs. 5 crores in April 2018 from Colosseum Group itself. Now with the recent round of funding it plans to expand in two new cities to offer their TaaS Model - Transportation as a Service to Corporates. 

“WhistleDrive target is to grow 10x with this series B investment. In the next 12 months we will look at entering 2 new cities to offer our TaaS Model - Transportation as a Service to Corporates beyond Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai where we will operate, expand fleets and fast-track customer acquisitions,” shared Munnanooru. 

Investor, Shailendra Tipparaju, Chairman of Colosseum Group also expressed his trust in WhistleDrive’s visions and said, “In addition to the significant value they add to the transportation industry via their well-built scalable solution, we are excited to be associated with the Young Indian amazing team! The company roadmap is robust and we found it is the right time to reinvest in their growth story”.

Further, Dr. Bala V. Balachandran, Chairman of Colosseum Advisory Board feels WhistleDrive is poised to be the leading Transportation as a Service (TaaS) company. 

Ridesharing services have witnessed an unprecedented growth in recent years. With convenient transport and safety as priorities, many individuals demanded for such services and created more demand for companies like Uber and Ola. While the B2C tech-based ridesharing services gained traction swiftly, such services in employee transport operations still lack behind. For many organizations, ferrying their employees from door-step to office and dropping them back is indeed a very challenging task. It requires careful planning, advanced technology support, timely action and periodic analysis. The solution lies in the integration of traditional transportation models and technology. With technologies like AI, ML and blockchain, organizations can have more efficient employee transportation solutions and ensure safe and convenient travel for their employees, and enhance their experience. 

Besides WhistleDrive, there are a few more emerging companies like MoveInSync,, and Routematic, which are leveraging technology and helping organizations move away from traditional employee transportation models and making them adopt more efficient and data-driven process.