Maliha M Quadir, founder of Shohoz, talks about the company's, Shohoz, mission at BBC.
Maliha Quadir of Shohoz says competition is the "biggest threat" in Bangladesh, but the company is working on differentiating itself.
Shohoz, a Bangladesh-based online ride-sharing and ticketing platform, announced today that it has raised US$15 million pre-series B investment. Shohoz lets consumers book car and motorbike rides for their daily commute, reserve bus and ferry seats, and even buy movie tickets from its website and app. It will use the fresh capital for customer acquisition and retention and expand into other on-demand services.
Shohoz facilitates transportation to short- and long-distance commuters, and helps smaller-scale restaurants and other business with sales and deliveries Shohoz, a super app that offers ridesharing, deliveries and travel/events ticketing services in Bangladesh, has closed new round of funding led by Vostok New Ventures, a Sweden-listed investment firm focused on online marketplaces.
Shohoz — which means ‘easy’ in Bengali — started in 2014 offering online bus ticket sales before expanding into other tickets like ferries. The startup moved into on-demand services in January when it added motorbikes and then it recently introduced private cars.
Last month Shohoz welcomed Ravi Garikipati - of Flipkart fame - to its board. Shohoz, the five-year old digital ticketing company, has expanded its business from ticketing to ride sharing and most recently to food delivery.
Bangladesh should be branded as an emerging ICT destination as opposed to being marketed as a place with the cheapest labour, speakers said at the third The Daily Star ICT Awards ceremony yesterday.
Her company Shohoz recently received a $15 million investment from Singapore-based venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures. In conversation with Dhaka Tribune's Niaz Mahmud, Shohoz founder shared her priotised areas for plan in going forward.
In the last two years or so, Shohoz has been able to install a ubiquitous presence in Dhaka. You would see their green-black spiralling logo on the back of car, on a battery of motorbike riders T-shirt and in helmets and strangely on small signboards hung on the gates of buildings and apartments saying “Don’t park here.”