Uber rival inDrive scales beyond ride-hailing to capture more consumer spending | TechCrunch

Known for letting riders and drivers negotiate fares, inDrive spent the past year adding businesses such as advertising and groceries to its core ride-hailing service. Now the Uber rival is scaling those bets, installing new leaders as its ads, delivery, and financial-services businesses show early signs of traction across its largely emerging-market user base.

Piloted in July 2025 and rolled out to its top 20 markets in January , inDrive’s advertising business has since expanded to 25 markets, serving more than 2 billion impressions and attracting over 2,000 paying advertisers a month, the company told TechCrunch. About two-thirds of those advertisers are repeat customers.

The Mountain View, California-based firm, which operates in over 1,200 cities across 48 countries, sees an opportunity to build an advertising business around an audience that can be harder for brands to reach through other platforms, Andries Smit, inDrive’s chief growth business officer, said in an interview.

“We’re in very clear emerging markets. Our segment is very different, and we can really help brands connect with a new audience in a different way,” Smit told TechCrunch.

inDrive is now pushing what it calls “Ride Media,” which is designed to capture passengers’ attention while they wait for a driver and during a trip. The company can currently target users based on places they have visited over a specified period, though it plans to add real-time targeting capabilities.

The push reflects a broader playbook among ride-hailing companies, which uses a large base of riders and drivers to build businesses that generate revenue beyond the relatively thin economics of matching passengers with cars. Uber has increasingly layered delivery, advertising, and other services onto its mobility network, while inDrive is betting that its reach across emerging markets can give it a similar opportunity with a different, more cost-conscious customer base.

There are early signs that inDrive is getting users to venture beyond rides. The company said 13% of its monthly transacting users used both mobility and at least one delivery service in 2025, as it looks to cross-sell services to customers already using its core ride-hailing business.

The number of loans taken out by drivers through inDrive.money in Latin America also jumped 118% year-over-year in the first half of 2026, the company told TechCrunch. The service, which offers short-term credit to drivers, is available in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, and Indonesia.

Smit declined to disclose how much capital inDrive has earmarked for its newer businesses in general. However, he said advertising, financial services, and delivery require relatively little funding to scale, while groceries and food will account for the bulk of its investment.

That investment could take inDrive deeper into another space long dominated by Uber and other delivery platforms. The company is testing prepared-food delivery with partners, according to a person familiar with the plans, though the effort remains in early stages. The company declined to share further details on the tests.

The food-delivery tests come as inDrive has hired Raphael Zennou, a former Delivery Hero executive, as vice president of food and groceries. The company has also brought former Google executive Max Silin to lead the ads business, called inDrive.Ads, and promoted Valentin Laykov to oversee its delivery business. Moreover, Alexander Kurchin will continue to lead inDrive.money.

Zennou previously helped oversee quick-commerce operations serving 21 million monthly customers at Delivery Hero, while Silin spent more than 11 years at Google in roles spanning digital media, monetization, and programmatic advertising. These appointments bring experience in delivery and advertising, the two businesses that have become important extensions of larger consumer platforms.

It is still unclear how financially significant these newer businesses are for inDrive. The company declined to disclose revenue from its advertising business or its share of overall revenue. Smit also would not say when he expects ads to become a material contributor to inDrive’s business.

The pace, Smit said, will depend not only on growing inDrive’s advertising inventory and advertiser base, but also on the expansion of businesses such as groceries and food, which can create more opportunities for advertising. “You’ll see a nice multiplier effect,” he said.