That’s the question hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar discuss with Vikas Bardia, co-founder and CEO of Shoffr, and Arpit Agarwal, investment partner at Blume Ventures.

Blusmart used to represent success, scale, and customer love—a reputation secured as an insurgent against incumbents like Uber and Ola. At its height, Blusmart had around 8,000 cabs in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru—hardly a small number. But now, things are tumbling down.

In episode 40 of Two by Two, they discuss the reasons why most of the online ride-hailing space looks the way it does because of VC money, why debt financing is preferred by players who own their own fleet, the different models at play presently and a whole lot more.

But the most important question we try to answer is what happens next, and who—if anyone—can become the next Blusmart? Or fill the space they have left?

Welcome to episode 40 of Two by Two.

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Additional reading:

Blusmart and the dogs that didn’t bark – https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/blusmart-and-the-dogs-that-didnt-bark/

Blusmart’s relationship with co-founder’s listed company could prove costly – https://the-ken.com/story/blusmarts-relationship-with-co-founders-listed-company-could-prove-costly/

Additional listening:

How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts’? – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/how-will-ola-and-uber-avoid-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/

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This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, please share it with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at [email protected].