Jatri

Jatri is a transportation and mobility company founded in Bangladesh in 2019 that began as a bus tracking and digital ticketing platform and has since broadened into a business-to-business travel commerce platform. Its original product mapped buses with real-time locations in a consumer app and provided digital ticketing, giving commuters trip planning, standardized fares and greater price transparency, while giving bus owners and operators a centralized dashboard synced with every vehicle on the network to replace paper- and cash book-based record keeping.

The company now describes three integrated verticals: Platform (a platform-as-a-service used by transport operators to automate inventory, revenue management and real-time operations), Corporate (B2B travel distribution and trade finance, including office commute and executive travel solutions), and Retail (passenger-facing booking). Alongside intra-city and long-haul bus ticketing, Jatri's stated services span ferry/water transport, intercity car hire and chauffeur services, accommodation, and Shariah-compliant working capital and credit solutions backed by insurance for travel trade partners.

Founding story

Co-founder and CEO Aziz Arman, a computer engineering graduate who first worked at a fashion-tech company, has said the idea for Jatri came from his own commuting experience and the problems of inconsistent timetables, payment difficulties and changing routes in public transport. He developed the concept with partners Khandokar Taswar Zahin and Zia U Ahmed, built an MVP and pitched it to angel investor Fahim Saleh, who guided the founders as the company was formed. Jatri launched in early 2019 with two buses on a single route.

Business model

Jatri sells technology and commerce services to transport operators, bus owners and travel buyers rather than relying solely on consumer sales. Operators pay for a platform-as-a-service covering digitized ticketing, inventory management, revenue management and real-time operational reporting; travel agents and B2B operators access aggregated supplier inventory for distribution; and the company offers trade finance, described as Shariah-compliant working capital and credit backed by insurance, to partners in its network.

Reported revenue-linked activities include ticketing and booking transactions across buses, water transport vessels and car hire, distribution of supplier inventory to travel agents, procurement contracts with global suppliers, and trade finance products the company states carry a 24% profit against a 13-14% cost of capital.

Traction

By early 2020 Jatri reported 100+ buses, 30,000+ users and 50,000+ completed rides. By April 2023 around 3,000 intra-city buses in Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet used its devices and platform — roughly five times the 600 buses covered 12-15 months earlier — with more than 30 national-route bus operators and over 40 launches (ferries) using its ticketing, and more than 100 million ticket sales processed since inception. The company's site later reports 2 million-plus registered users, 250 million-plus tickets sold, 6,500-plus buses onboarded, 250+ B2B operators, 120,000+ rental partners, 50+ water transport vessels and coverage of 110+ cities.

Latest developments

In April 2023 Jatri announced an oversubscribed Series A round led by SBK Tech Ventures that brought cumulative venture investment to $5.25 million, earmarked for expansion into new cities and augmentation of existing services, with a focus on integrating digital payment options. The company subsequently described expansion into the Middle East and a repositioning as a global B2B travel commerce platform combining distribution and trade finance.