Tootle, a mobile application designed by young Nepalis has been crowned most promising startup by Seedstars World, a global firm involved in promoting startups in emerging markets.

Tootle was competing against 10 other startups for the trophy of the most promising seed-stage startup of Seedstars Kathmandu 2017 and was deemed the winner on Monday.

Tootle is an app which brings a two-wheeler to your doorstep which then drops you off at your chosen destination. This app is basically playing the role of a matchmaker between people who need rides on two-wheelers and those who are willing to offer rides from 8 am to 8 pm inside the Kathmandu Valley.

 “We were selected by the jury as the best among 10 other startups that were pitching their venture in an event organised in the Capital on Monday,” said Princi Koirala, senior product designer and founding partner of Tootle. “As we are already a viable business, it must have prompted the jury to select us as the winner.”

As the winner, Tootle will now join the global Seedstars family and take part in the regional and global Seedstars Summits that include various boot camps and investor forums.

Similarly, one of the founders will be visiting Switzerland in November to compete in the global arena. “Tootle will participate in Seedstars Summit in Switzerland, the event offering a prize money of $1 million,” said Adhikari. “Apart from competing for the prize money, we will be pitching our business model to investors from all over the world.”  

Tootle was launched in January by a group of youngsters conducting research on location-based online platforms.

Initially, the team—Aayush Subedi, Princi Koirala, Bina Laxmi Shrestha, Sixit Bhatta and few others—designed an app that could track Sajha buses.

But the state-owned transport company did not show much interest in the app.

Later, the same group decided to design a ride-hailing app like Uber, Lyft and Ola. These youngsters, however, did not focus on providing car service like Uber or Ola, because they knew the introduction of such service would not work in the Nepal market.

The company allows anyone with a two-wheeler to work as a Tootle driver. But the person has to go through a screening process, which includes submission of a copy of driving license and a recent photograph.

The company also allows clients to rate drivers, who can pocket around 64 percent of the fare after deducting government taxes and Tootle commission. Tootle takes a commission equivalent to 20 percent of the fare from drivers.

So far, over 4,000 people have signed up to work as drivers for Tootle, according to Adhikari. It also has a client base of 30,000 who take 250 to 300 rides per day.