Opportunity to Live the Dream #1
Wise Travel Cabs; India`s answer to Hertz ?
The best part of investing is that you get to own a business without sweating it out every day—without running operations, making strategies, or constantly answering to customers, employees, regulators, and investors. You can literally “own the empire” you always wanted while sitting at your desk, making Excel sheets and PowerPoint slides for your boss.
Like me, I’m sure many of you have secretly wanted to become entrepreneurs and start something — boring, cool, or even generational. This series, Opportunity to Live the Dream, is my way of investing in companies I always wanted to build myself.
Flashback: My First Cab Business Experience
Thanks to my entrepreneurial father, I got to see a corporate rental cab business up close in 2000–2003, when I was still in school. My father owned two used Maruti Esteems, deployed at Reliance for ferrying their General Managers to and from office every day.
The model was simple: each car was dedicated to one executive, clocked fixed kilometres daily, and earned on a per-km basis. Margins were healthy at ~20%. But there was a catch — Reliance paid our aggregator (a friend of my father) late, and the aggregator paid us even later.
Despite solid margins and multi-year contracts, cash flows eventually broke the business. We weren’t paid for 8–9 months, and had to sell the cars to cover costs.
Learning #1: Cash Flow > Profits.
Lesson from the Salesman Years
Fast forward a decade. As a salesman, I travelled two weeks a month in long-distance corporate rental cabs. Conversations with drivers and cab owners taught me something new: asset utilization is everything — and it’s almost entirely dependent on driver willingness and discipline.
Our business at the time grew from fewer than 5 cabs to 25+ in just 2 years, becoming a double-digit crore profit maker. At one point, drivers and I were earning about the same every month.
Learning #2: Drivers’ skin in the game decides profitability.
The Missed Uber-Ola Opportunity
By 2015–16, Uber and Ola were burning cash to lure drivers. Incentives were so crazy that one could earn ₹40–70K net per month and recover the cost of a new Swift Dzire in under a year. I almost jumped in with a colleague to start our own fleet.
But we never grew a pair. That plan remained in the realm of dreams.
WTI Cabs — A Dream Made Investable
Enter WTI — a company that actually built the business I always dreamed of.
Model: ~99% B2B. Primarily an Employee Transportation Fleet Operator (cabs + drivers, or full Managed Transport Solutions with logistics managers). They also offer on-demand corporate rentals. Together, ETS + Corporate Rentals = ~78% of revenues.
Other Verticals: Airport counters across 16 locations (~22% of revenue), plus project-based contracts (e.g., they began with Commonwealth Games 2010).
Promoter: Mr. Ashok Vashisht, MD and founder, has >25 years’ experience in transport (ex-TCI, ex-CEO CarzonRent). Since 2009, he’s grown WTI into a serious player in a brutal, low-margin industry — pioneering the “Driver-Owner” model that’s now industry standard.
WTI went public in 2024, raising ~₹95 Cr at ~₹350 Cr valuation, mainly to fund ~₹75 Cr of working capital. At IPO time (FY23), revenues were ~₹190 Cr with PAT ~₹11 Cr.
Fast forward two years: revenues are ~₹590 Cr, PAT ~₹23 Cr ,and almost similar IPO valuations, looks like market didnt value the 2X growth in PAT.
They’ve expanded into self-drive in Dubai and UK and started leasing vehicles to Uber Black. Ashok’s ambition is bold: make WTI the first global car rental company out of India, like Hertz.
Is This a Good Franchise with a Durable Moat?
The Indian car rental business is a commodity — unless you’re pure B2B like WTI. Their differentiation lies in SLA-based service contracts, which aggregators struggle to deliver. Ultimately, success still comes down to drivers — but WTI’s model minimizes the risk by keeping drivers off the payroll (asset-light), except in specific verticals (Projects, Uber Black) where they did capex on ~1,400 vehicles (funded through IPO money + debt).
Returns: Across verticals, RoIC should settle at ~12–14%.
Growth: Management can likely sustain 20–25% CAGR for 3–5 years.
Market: Employee transportation + corporate rental + ride hailing is massive. Even if we discount 20% for unorganized/unaddressable markets, WTI’s addressable pie is ~₹25–30K Cr.
Potential: Capturing even a sliver could mean ₹1,000 Cr topline in a few years. At 4–5% PAT margins, that’s ~₹40–50 Cr steady-state earnings (and possibly more).
At today’s ~₹400 Cr market cap:
FY25 PAT is ~₹23 Cr → P/E ~17x ; Cash Profit is ~40 Cr
If they scale to ₹1,000 Cr revenue with > 50 Cr PAT in 3–5 years, stock can 2–3x.
Not a screaming bargain, but fairly valued for the growth runway.
Final Take
WTI Cabs is a scalable, profitable, growing franchise in a tough industry. It has:
A battle-tested promoter with skin in the game.
A B2B-first model with strong differentiation.
Clear runway to double/ teiple revenues in the medium term.
Early steps toward becoming a global Indian brand.
It’s not without risks — cash flows, working capital, and execution must be watched closely. Any drop in growth, or international operations becoming diworsification or asset utilisation coming down is a problem. But for me, this is as close as I’ll ever come to living my dream of running a cab company.
Disclosure: I’ve already invested at ₹120–140 (through my father’s account). Hopefully, he gets to live his dream of running a ₹1,000 Cr cab company someday.
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A SEBI-REGISTERED ADVISOR OR A FINANCIAL ADVISER. ALL THE VIEWS ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE INVESTED IN THESE STOCKS. PLEASE DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE YOURSELF. THIS IS NOT A STOCK RECOMMENDATION.