PickMe

For other uses, see Pick Me.

PickMe is a Sri Lankan taxi hailing and delivery app developed by Digital Mobility Solutions Lanka Ltd. It launched in June 2015.^[2][3] The app is available in English, Sinhala and Tamil on Android and iOS. By 2021 the company had 8000 registered users.^[4]

Digital Mobility Solutions Lanka Limited

Trade name	PickMe
Company type	Public
Traded as	CSE: PKME.N0000
ISIN	LK0495N00008
Industry	Technological Mobility Solutions provider
Founded	March 2014; 10 years ago (2014-03)
Founder	Zulfer Hassen
Headquarters	Colombo , Sri Lanka
Area served	Sri Lanka
Key people	Ajith Gunewardene (Chairman) Zulfer Hassen (CEO)
Products	PickMe Taxi Hailing App, PickMe Food
Services	taxi hailing and delivery app
Revenue	LKR3,919 million (2024)
Operating income	LKR925 million (2024)
Net income	LKR679 million (2024)
Total assets	LKR2,821 million (2024)
Total equity	LKR1,749 million (2024)
Owners	Zulfer Hassen (35.79%) International Finance Corporation (14.19%) Ajith Gunewardene (9.44%) LOLC Technologies Limited (9.33%)
Number of employees	over 300 (2024)
Website	pickme.lk
Footnotes / references [1]

History

PickMe was founded by entrepreneur Jiffry Zulfer in 2015. It was backed by the International Finance Corporation.^[5]

In September 2015, PickMe raised 150 million rupees in private funding.^[6] By June 2017, 6.5 million rides in total had been completed, with 35,000 rides happening daily, and the number of customers stood at around 620,000.^[7]

YAMU acquisition

PickMe acquired YAMU, a food and hotel review site, in July 2019. At the time YAMU had 325,000 monthly active users and 615,000 monthly pageviews.^[8]

COVID-19 response

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka, PickMe utilised innovations such as displaying the vaccination status of the driver, providing cash incentives for passengers riding to the nearest vaccination center, contact tracing, and installation of separators and hand sanitization facilities.^[4] PickMe's Flash delivery service was used by restaurants to deliver over 8200 orders during the lockdowns.^[9]

IPO

The company announced its initial public offering on the Colombo Stock Exchange in September 2024. The company offered 13.04% of its shares and hoped to raise LKR1.5 billion.^[10] The IPO was held on 13 September 2024 and was oversubscribed on its opening day itself.^[11]

Technology

PickMe's backend services utilise the microservices architecture, with over 100 microservices.^[12] It utilises Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, is deployed using Docker and Kubernetes, and uses Apache Kafka as a messaging service. The data science platform uses Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, and Apache Hive. PickMe's micoservices are written in Go.^[13]

See also

• List of companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange

References

1. "PickMe Prospectus IPO" (PDF). PickMe. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 5, 2024. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
2. Illanperuma, Shiran (December 16, 2015). "PickMe up in Sinhala and Tamil". Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka). Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. Archived from the original on December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
3. "IPO galore at CSE: PickMe gears up for IPO". The Morning (Sri Lanka). April 25, 2021. Archived from the original on October 4, 2024. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
4. "PickMe invests Rs. 50 m to keep driver partners and customers safe". Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. Daily FT. September 1, 2021. Archived from the original on December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
5. Siddiqui, Zuha; Rathnayake, Zinara (March 6, 2024). "This cab startup helped 100,000 drivers survive Sri Lanka's economic crisis". Rest of World. Archived from the original on April 16, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
6. Hathiramani, Jagdish (September 13, 2015). "Taxi app PickMe rings up Rs. 150 mln in private funding". The Sunday Times Sri Lanka. Archived from the original on June 26, 2022. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
7. "Startup success PickMe poised for bigger ride". Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. Daily FT. August 28, 2017. Archived from the original on December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
8. "PickMe acquires food review portal YAMU". themorning.lk. July 31, 2019. Archived from the original on December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
9. "How technology is making last-mile delivery easier for Sri Lankan SMEs". No. 9 February 2021. Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. Daily FT. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
10. "Digital Mobility Solutions Lanka announces IPO". The Island. September 6, 2024. Retrieved September 14, 2024.
11. "PickMe's IPO oversubscribed". Ada Derana. September 13, 2024. Archived from the original on September 14, 2024. Retrieved September 14, 2024.
12. "A Closer Look at the Engineering that brings about Joyful Mobility". The PickMe Engineering Blog. PickMe Engineering. Archived from the original on December 18, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
13. Nishantha, Srimal. "How to get Profiling Right with Go?". The PickMe Engineering Blog. PickMe Engineering. Archived from the original on December 18, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2021.

External links

• Official website