Startup Deep Dive : zingbus — how an asset-light bus platform grew revenue 84% while still losing money

zingbus reported ₹218.8 crore of revenue for the year to March 2023, then ₹87.6 crore (about $9.1 million at $1 ≈ ₹96.0) for the year after. Read straight, that looks like a company that lost more than half its business in twelve months. Read correctly, it is a company that changed how it counts.

The Gurugram intercity bus platform did not shrink. Between FY24 and FY25 its operating revenue grew 83.9%, from ₹87.6 crore to ₹161.1 crore, and it closed a Series A led by bp Ventures in December 2024. The gap between those two stories — a top line that appears to collapse while the underlying business expands — is the single most useful thing to understand about zingbus, and it sits at the centre of how the company makes, and loses, money.

Quick facts

What they do

zingbus sells intercity bus seats to travellers and, on the other side, lends its brand, technology and demand to small and medium bus operators who own and run the vehicles. The consumer sees one thing — a zingbus branded coach with live tracking, defined amenities and a customer-support promise. Behind that front end sits somebody else’s bus.

• Two supply models sit under one app: an exclusive-inventory model where partner operators run fleets under the zingbus brand, and “ValueBus”, a just-in-time marketplace that lists other operators’ seats when demand outruns the branded fleet (Motorindia, 2025).
• Roughly 52 operator partners across 17 states run exclusive fleets for zingbus, with about 160 more companies plugged in through ValueBus (Motorindia, 2025).
• The brand works with about 300 buses today and has stated a target of 3,000 over five years, with more than 30% expected to be electric (Motorindia, 2025).
• Network reach is company-stated at 500-plus cities across 18-plus states and over two million users since inception (bp Ventures, December 2024; company statements).

The origin

The founding insight was that India’s intercity bus market was enormous, fragmented and almost entirely unbranded. Thousands of small operators ran decent buses, but a passenger booking a Delhi-to-Chandigarh or Delhi-to-Jaipur seat had no way of knowing whether the coach would be clean, on time, or even show up. Aggregators sold the ticket; nobody owned the experience.

Prashant Kumar had seen the supply side of Indian logistics up close. He took a B.Tech in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 2014, worked as a supply-chain analyst at Flipkart, and then ran a category at the intra-city bus startup ZipGo before starting zingbus in 2019 with Ravi Kumar Verma and Mratunjay. The bet was that the value was not in listing more buses but in standardising the ride: put a consistent brand promise on top of other people’s assets, and control the parts the customer feels — pricing, routing, punctuality, support — while leaving the capital-heavy business of owning coaches to operators. As Prashant has framed the brand promise: “Irrespective of who runs it or where, the zingbus promise should stay.”

The struggle years

zingbus launched in 2019 and ran headlong into COVID-19 within months. Intercity travel is one of the first things to stop in a lockdown and one of the last to fully recover, and 2020 and 2021 were brutal for anyone whose revenue depended on people leaving their cities. The company survived the period on early cheques rather than on cash flow.

The harder, less obvious struggle was structural. Getting to consistency while owning none of the buses meant policing quality across dozens of independent operators, each with their own drivers, maintenance and incentives — the classic marketplace problem of controlling an experience you do not directly run.

• The model shifted away from a heavier, more asset-committed approach toward today’s asset-light structure, where supply-side operations sit with the operator while zingbus keeps control of demand: service design, pricing and routes (Motorindia, 2025).
• Losses ran ahead of revenue for years. In FY24 the EBITDA margin was about -44.5%, meaning the core operation lost roughly 45 paise before interest, tax and depreciation on every rupee of revenue (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• Liquidity stayed thin. At 31 March 2025, after five-plus years and multiple rounds, cash and bank balances stood at about ₹3 crore against total current assets of ₹9 crore (Entrackr, RoC filings) — a business still dependent on fresh capital.

The turning point

The clearest inflection is the December 2024 Series A led by bp Ventures, the venture arm of the British energy major. On one side of that event, zingbus was a private company with an EBITDA margin near -44.5% and a revenue base under ₹90 crore. On the other side, it had a strategic backer, a stated push toward electric buses, and the capital to chase a much larger fleet.

• bp Ventures invested $9 million (about ₹41.8 crore) on 16 December 2024, leading the Series A, with Info Edge participating; the round was reported at roughly ₹59 crore in total (bp Ventures; Incubees; Entrackr).
• By FY25, EBITDA loss had narrowed to ₹30.4 crore from ₹38.7 crore, moving the EBITDA margin from -44.5% in FY24 to -18.9% in FY25 (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• The per-rupee economics improved: zingbus spent about ₹1.19 to earn ₹1 in FY25, versus ₹1.33 in FY24 (Entrackr, RoC filings).

The round bought more than runway. It attached zingbus to a partner with reasons to care about electric intercity transport, and reframed the company from a bus aggregator into an EV-mobility story — a repositioning that matters for how future capital gets raised.

The money behind it

zingbus has raised across roughly nine to ten rounds since 2019, funded by early-stage funds and a long list of angels rather than by large growth cheques. Trackers disagree on the total, so treat it as a range.

• Total raised: reported between about $16.4 million (Tracxn) and roughly $25 million (Entrackr’s RoC-based tally) — the discrepancy is exactly the kind of contested figure to hold loosely.
• February 2021, pre-Series A: led by Venture Catalysts, Titan Capital and Better Capital, with OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal among the angels; amount undisclosed (YourStory, February 2021).
• July 2021, seed: about $6.0 million, led by Info Edge Ventures with FundersClub and others (Crunchbase).
• December 2024, Series A: $9 million (about ₹41.8 crore) led by bp Ventures, with Info Edge; round reported at roughly ₹59 crore total (bp Ventures; Incubees).
• Other named backers: AdvantEdge, 9Unicorns, Aman Gupta and Anupam Mittal; zingbus is a Y Combinator alumnus (Tracxn; Crunchbase).
• Valuation: reported at roughly $55.5–62.5 million after the December 2024 round by secondary trackers; the company has not confirmed a figure, so treat it as unconfirmed.

What each backer changed is instructive: Info Edge (the Naukri and Zomato-era investor behind IE Ventures) provided repeat institutional support across rounds, while bp Ventures supplied both capital and a strategic reason to lean into electric fleets.

How it makes money

zingbus sits between the passenger and the operator and earns on the seats it moves. The mechanics are simple to state and hard to run at a margin.

• Money in: commission and a tiered revenue-share on tickets sold under the zingbus brand, plus marketplace economics on ValueBus seats (thebusinessrule; Motorindia).
• Biggest cost out: bus hire charges paid to operators — ₹121 crore in FY25, up 147% year on year and about 63% of all expenses (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• Other major costs (FY25): guarantee commission to fleet partners ₹16 crore (up 78%); employee benefits ₹15 crore (up 7%); advertising and marketing ₹6 crore (up 9%) (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• Where the margin sits: in the spread between what a seat sells for and what zingbus guarantees and pays the operator — which is why unit economics live or die on load factors and route pricing.

Here is the part people get wrong, and it explains the hook. The reported ₹218.8 crore for FY23 (Inc42 Datalabs) is not comparable to the ₹87.6 crore for FY24 (RoC filings). The most plausible reconciliation is a change in how revenue is booked — from a gross basis that counts the whole ticket value toward a net basis that counts only zingbus’s cut — which mechanically shrinks the reported top line even as the business grows. That interpretation is not confirmed by the company; what is confirmed is that FY24 and FY25 are reported on a consistent operating-revenue basis, so the honest comparison is FY24 to FY25, not FY23 to FY24.

The numbers

The consistent, RoC-based series runs FY24 to FY25. The FY23 line is shown separately because it appears to be reported on a different (gross) basis and is not directly comparable.

• Operating revenue grew 83.9% from FY24 to FY25, from ₹87.6 crore to ₹161.1 crore (RoC filings, via Entrackr and Inc42).
• Net loss was near-flat — ₹24 crore in FY24 and ₹25.4 crore in FY25 — meaning the company roughly held its rupee losses steady while nearly doubling revenue.
• Total expenditure rose 65%, to ₹191 crore in FY25 from ₹116 crore in FY24 (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• Return on capital employed was -40.39% in FY25 (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• Company-stated ambition: revenue above ₹350 crore in the current fiscal year through network expansion in north and south India — a target, not a filing.
• FY23 figures (₹218.8 crore revenue, ₹51.3 crore loss) come from Inc42 Datalabs; they are shown for completeness, not as a like-for-like comparison.

Where the money comes from

Revenue concentration is the story here: zingbus earns essentially all of its operating income from intercity bus ticketing. There is no large second line of business cushioning it.

• By product: intercity bus travel is the entire operating-revenue base; the company describes ticketing as its core income source.
• By supply channel: two streams — branded exclusive-inventory buses (52 operators, 17 states) and the lighter ValueBus marketplace (~160 companies) that fills demand spikes (Motorindia, 2025).
• By geography: a north-India core, with stated expansion into south India as the next growth vector; the FY26 revenue target is pinned to that geographic push (company statements).

The surprise is how operator-dependent the economics are. Bus hire charges alone were ₹121 crore in FY25 — about 75% of operating revenue and roughly 63% of total costs. zingbus keeps the brand and the customer, but the single largest claim on every rupee it earns is the payment to the people who actually own the buses. That is the trade-off of asset-light: low capital intensity, but a thin slice of a large gross flow.

The risks

• Structurally thin margins. With bus hire charges consuming roughly three-quarters of operating revenue and a FY25 EBITDA margin of -18.9%, the model has limited room for pricing errors. Any slip in load factors or a rise in guaranteed operator payments (guarantee commission already grew 78% in FY25) pushes the core operation further into the red (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• Liquidity and capital dependence. Cash and bank balances were about ₹3 crore at 31 March 2025 against current assets of ₹9 crore. A business still losing ₹25 crore a year on that cash base needs regular external funding; a slower funding market is an existential, not cosmetic, risk (Entrackr, RoC filings).
• Competition and low switching costs. zingbus competes with RedBus (the incumbent aggregator), operators’ own direct sales, trains and low-cost flights. Passengers are price-sensitive and rarely loyal to a bus brand, which caps the pricing power the whole model depends on.
• Execution risk on the EV pivot. The plan to reach 1,000 electric buses by 2030 (from 50 in 2026) leans on leasing partner Drivn and charging access from Jio-bp; the asset-light structure reduces capex but adds partner and charging-infrastructure dependencies zingbus does not fully control (Autocar Professional, 2026).

The takeaway

The transferable lesson is about what a number means before it means anything. zingbus’s revenue did not halve between FY23 and FY24; the way it counted revenue changed, and a headline figure that looked like a collapse was really an accounting reset. Anyone reading startup financials — or building a company that reports them — has to know the basis before trusting the trend. The more durable version of the same lesson is strategic: an asset-light brand can grow fast on other people’s capital, but it only earns a thin cut of a big gross flow, so the whole enterprise stands or falls on the discipline of its unit economics. zingbus has narrowed that gap, from ₹1.33 spent per rupee earned to ₹1.19. Whether it can close it entirely is the only question that matters.

Frequently asked questions

What is zingbus and what does it sell?

zingbus is an asset-light intercity bus platform run by Zingbus Technology Private Limited. It sells bus seats to travellers under its own brand while partner operators own and run the coaches, combining branded exclusive-inventory buses with a “ValueBus” marketplace for extra supply.

Who founded zingbus and when?

It was incorporated on 23 April 2019 and launched the same year, founded by Prashant Kumar, Ravi Kumar Verma and Mratunjay. Prashant Kumar, the CEO, is an IIT Kharagpur graduate who previously worked at Flipkart and the intra-city bus startup ZipGo.

How much revenue does zingbus make?

Operating revenue was ₹161.1 crore in FY25, up 83.9% from ₹87.6 crore in FY24, per filings with the Registrar of Companies. The company posted a net loss of ₹25.4 crore in FY25.

How much funding has zingbus raised and who backs it?

Reported totals range from about $16.4 million (Tracxn) to roughly $25 million (Entrackr). Backers include bp Ventures, which led a $9 million Series A in December 2024, along with Info Edge Ventures, AdvantEdge, Venture Catalysts, Titan Capital and OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal; zingbus is a Y Combinator alumnus.

Is zingbus profitable?

No. It remained loss-making in FY25 with a net loss of ₹25.4 crore, though its EBITDA margin improved from -44.5% in FY24 to -18.9% in FY25 and its per-rupee spend fell from ₹1.33 to ₹1.19.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Entrackr, Fintrackr — “Info Edge-backed Zingbus crosses Rs 150 Cr revenue in FY25” (January 2026)
• Inc42 — Zingbus company financials and FY23 Datalabs tracker (2025–2026)
• Angel One — “Info Edge-Backed Zingbus Surpasses ₹150 Crore Revenue in FY25” (January 2026)
• bp Ventures / bp India — “bp Ventures invests $9 million in India’s leading intercity bus platform, Zingbus” press release (December 2024)
• Motorindia — “Asset-light, SOP-heavy: Inside zingbus’ push to 3,000 buses & a 30% EV mix” (2025)
• Autocar Professional — “zingbus to deploy 50 electric buses in 2026, targets 1,000 by 2030” (2026)
• YourStory — “Zingbus raises pre-Series A round from Venture Catalysts, Ritesh Agarwal” (February 2021) and company profile
• Crunchbase — Zingbus funding rounds and investors profile
• Tracxn — Zingbus company, funding and investors profile (2026)
• The Company Check — Zingbus Technology Private Limited (CIN U60231HR2019PTC079878)
• Incubees — “Intercity mobility startup ZingBus received Rs 59 Cr from Info Edge and BP Ventures”
• thebusinessrule — “How Does Zingbus Make Money? Business Model Explained”

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