Ride-hailing startup Shohoz raises $15 million for expansion

M Humayun Kabir: Shohoz, Bangladeshi ride-hailing startup, has raised $15 million from investors as it plans to expand its services.
Among the investors were Singapore-based Golden Gate Ventures, China’s Linear VC, 500 Startups and Singapore-based Koh Boon Hwee.
CEO Maliha Quadir told Tech Crunch that the company provides 1 million completed rides a month and plans to double down on its ride-sharing business and hopes to expand beyond Dhaka.
Shohoz had started in 2014 as a way to purchase bus tickets online before expanding to ferries and then to on-demand services such as motorcycles and private cars in 2018.
In an interview, Maliha Quadir explained as saying, “Bus tickets will remain an important part of our business, [there’s] lots of synergy with ride-sharing.”
“Dhaka has a super dense population with bad infrastructure, if anything there’s a better case for ride-sharing than Indonesia… there’s no subway and transport is a horrid nightmare.”
Shohoz is also looking to enter ‘super app’ territory in the style of Indonesia’s Go-Jek and Singapore’s Grab by introducing services such as food delivery.
Shohoz’s local rival Pathao is backed by Go-Jek and recently raised $10 million from investors, said TechCrunch.