KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 23 inDrive has long stood out in the ride-hailing space for one simple reason: it lets riders propose their own fare. But the company is now working on something broader, expanding its model into new services under a super app framework. Yalena Yang Sun, Director of Super App at InDrive, spoke about what this transition involves, what it means for the markets the company operates in, and why she believes the same principles that worked in mobility can be applied elsewhere. The push into super app territory, she explains, is rooted in the same logic that shaped the ride-hailing product. 'Our transition towards a super app is very much anchored on the goal of expanding our fairness-driven model that we've very successfully implemented in the ride-hailing space,' she says. 'The main goal is to enable fairness in more aspects of people's daily life.' In practice, this means moving beyond transportation and into other services that people rely on regularly, with the same underlying intent of making them more affordable and accessible. The services being added will vary by market, and that is intentional. InDrive operates across emerging markets, each with distinct economic conditions and local realities, and Yang Sun is clear that a uniform global approach is not the plan. 'We don't want to bring a very standardized global playbook to replicate the same thing exactly across our markets. The makeup would need to be tailored locally.' The company instead wants to assess each market individually and determine which services are most relevant and where there is a genuine opportunity to offer a fairer alternative to what already exists. Beyond ride-hailing, InDrive has already moved into courier delivery and intercity travel, both of which sit within the broader mobility space. Grocery is the next significant area of focus. The company made several deals last year to launch InDrive Grocery in select markets, and Yang Sun says they intend to continue building in that direction. 'Food is very much essential for people. They eat and drink every day, and there's an opportunity to make that more affordable.' She frames this not as a diversification exercise but as a natural continuation of the same problem the company has been trying to solve since its early days in ride-hailing. Fintech is perhaps the most notable and structurally different new addition. Digital services, Yang Sun points out, cannot function entirely on a cash economy, and in many of the markets InDrive operates in, mobile banking and digital payments are gaining traction rapidly. InDrive already offers a service called InDrive Money, which provides small-ticket lending to users who may not have access to traditional banking infrastructure. 'They probably don't even have a bank account, but they will be able to get credit from InDrive,' she notes. In markets like Nepal, where digital payment adoption is growing steadily, she sees clear room to expand in this space and views fintech as an area the company is actively investing attention in. The super app model also has direct implications for the workers within the platform, not just the end users. A driver currently earns exclusively from rides, but the expanded ecosystem is designed to open up additional income streams. With delivery and parcel services added to the platform, drivers could take on that work as well. And with financial products like InDrive Money specifically tailored for them, the benefits extend beyond earnings. 'It is really just to open up a whole lot more opportunity for them. They can not only earn more, they will also be able to unlock more financial capacity with us.' Yang Sun is careful to note that the super app is being built with all sides of the marketplace in mind, covering drivers and delivery workers on the supply side, users on the demand side, and merchants who may eventually operate within the platform. On the question of differentiation, Yang Sun points back to the negotiation model and the lower take rates it enables as the foundation of what sets InDrive apart. That core principle, she says, will carry through into the new services even if the exact implementation differs depending on the category. A peer-to-peer negotiation model may not translate directly to grocery delivery, for instance, but that does not mean the fairness principle has to be abandoned. 'It might be a variation of that model depending on the exact service we offer. But all of the services we offer would be anchored on the principle of providing a fairer and more equitable access.' The negotiation feature, in other words, is one expression of a broader value rather than the value itself. Yang Sun also touches on what the super app experience should actually feel like for users. A platform that simply adds more services without thinking carefully about how they are presented risks becoming difficult to navigate. The goal, she says, is personalization. Rather than asking users to sift through everything on offer and find what is relevant to them, InDrive wants to surface the right things at the right time. 'We want to do the reverse. We tailor what we offer based on what we think they would need.' This shift requires significant work on the backend, but she describes it as one of the more important transitions the company is trying to make as the platform grows in complexity. Building toward all of this has not been without difficulty. One of the more persistent challenges is finding local partners who genuinely align with the company's approach. The concern is not just capability but values. A partner who raises prices once they have established a presence would undermine exactly what InDrive is trying to do. 'Finding the right partner locally who shares our value and provides high quality, reliable services is very, very critical,' Yang Sun says. It is something the company is continuously working on as it looks to bring more partners into the ecosystem across different markets. There are also technical constraints that are specific to emerging markets and cannot be overlooked. Sophisticated backend infrastructure does not help much if the app runs poorly on the devices most users actually own or struggles with inconsistent internet connectivity. 'How do we ensure our application, despite the sophistication we're adding in the backend, can still have very strong app performance? These are very creative challenges we are trying to solve.' The emphasis on building for the actual conditions in these markets, rather than assuming a baseline level of hardware or connectivity, runs through much of how InDrive approaches product development. Ultimately, Yang Sun frames the super app effort as a direct extension of what the company has already been doing, not a reinvention. 'We're not trying to do this just for the sake of scaling the business, but rather to maximize the impact that we can deliver. Not only do they have a fair ride to go to a different place, they could also have access to fair groceries, fair lending solutions. That is the main purpose behind why we are doing this.' The ambition, as she describes it, is less about building a larger product and more about asking how far a single principle, applied consistently, can actually reach.