Ever since it started, Rapido, the bike taxi company has consciously stayed away from venturing into the cab business. It was happy to stay in the bike taxi lane and beat Ola and Uber there even though that it managed to do it at the expense of customer safety.

Now, though, eight years later, Rapido has finally launched its own cab hailing service. Over the last six months or so, it ran a pilot project in Hyderabad and ended up with almost a 25% share of the city’s cab hailing market so last month, it decided to launch in two more cities, New Delhi and Bangalore.

What makes it different from Ola and Uber is that instead of commissions, it wants its driver partners to pay a subscription. Right now, Rapido only charges a subscription fee in Hyderabad, and drivers in the other two cities can use the platform for free for another few months. 

The idea is to disrupt the market by making it a more economic deal for cab drivers whose earnings from Ola and Uber have been on a free fall since the last few years.

But disruption comes at a cost.

Tune in

Also listen to: Is Rapido trading passenger safety for growth?

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.