Meru Cabs plans to raise USD 100 million from US, Hong Kong investors

Meru Cabs is looking to raise $100 million (around Rs 625 crore) by next month from US and Hong-Kong based hedge funds and venture capitalists, in order to fund its expansion drive in the country.

"We had recently raised $50 million from our existing investors - India Value Fund Advisors (IVFA). We are now planning to further raise $100 million from a set of investors," Meru Cabs CEO Siddhartha Pahwa told PTI.

The fund-raising exercise would be completed by next month, he added.

The Mumbai-based firm, which has presence in over 20 cities currently with a fleet of over 15,000 cars, is looking to expand its operations to over 40 cities by the end of this year.

Elaborating on the strategy, Pahwa said: "We are focusing on three things. Firstly, we are looking to increase our customer base, secondly we are looking at upgrading the auto rickshaw users to our small cabs (Genie) and thirdly to expand in new cities".

So, the next round of funding would be utilised to fulfill all these three focus areas, he added.

Meru Cabs began operations in 2006 and has been growing exponentially since then, Pahwa said.

"With this kind of growth we expect our fleet to increase to 1 lakh cars in the next 3-4 years," he added.