Uber rival inDrive scales beyond ride-hailing to capture more consumer spending
- ID
- 22801
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 09 Sep 2026, 11:10 PM
- Fetched
- 10 Sep 2026, 1:08 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/09/uber-rival-indrive-scales-beyond-ride-hailing-to-capture-more-consumer-spending/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 3.5
- Created
- 10 Sep 2026, 1:10 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_founders
What happened
inDrive, the fare-negotiation ride-hailing app operating in 48 countries, is scaling its advertising, delivery, and financial-services businesses after piloting ads in July 2025. Its 'Ride Media' ad business now covers 25 markets, serves over 2 billion impressions, and attracts more than 2,000 paying advertisers monthly, with about two-thirds being repeat customers. The company currently targets users based on visited locations and plans to add real-time targeting.
Why it matters
If you build ad-tech, local commerce, or fintech products targeting emerging-market consumers, inDrive's Ride Media is a new distribution channel worth evaluating—its location-based targeting reaches a cost-conscious audience that may be underserved by Meta and Google. No specific Malaysia or SEA details are in the text, so local relevance is unconfirmed.
Discussion angle
Whether ride-hailing ad inventory is a genuinely useful channel for SEA startups, or just thin-margin cross-selling that won't survive compared to established ad platforms.