Vindhya Mehrotra & Fery Rides
Vindhya Mehrotra is the Co-founder and CMO of Fery Rides, India’s first women-led, EV-powered ride-hailing platform created for women, by women. The idea for Fery Rides was inspired by a close friend's experience of harassment while commuting, which revealed how unsafe mobility restricts women’s freedom and opportunities. This motivated Vindhya to build a solution at the intersection of safety, empowerment, and sustainability.
Every ride on Fery is provided by a trained, background-verified woman driver — a "Sister Partner" — exclusively for women passengers. Every vehicle is fully electric, contributing to cleaner air in India's cities. And every driver earns a dignified, flexible income that supports her family and inspires others.
The numbers reflect a platform that has found genuine product-market fit: over 65,000 rides completed, more than 50,000 women passengers served, and over 250 Sister Partners onboarded and earning. Fery operates across two service lines — on-demand EV two-wheeler rides for last-mile connectivity, and scheduled EV cab rides for premium city and airport travel — giving women safe, reliable options at every price point.
With our $500 Giving Joy microgrant, Fery Rides set out to onboard 10 new Sister Partners — equipping them with everything they needed to get on the road safely and confidently from day one. The grant funded helmets, safety kits, mobile phone mounts for navigation, and EV charging accessories, distributed during the onboarding process to enable immediate deployment. Alongside the equipment, Fery ran self-defense training sessions focused on personal safety awareness, situational response, and confidence-building — creating space for drivers to share experiences and learn from each other in a supportive environment.
The Results
All 10 Sister Partners were successfully onboarded, equipped, and deployed into active rides. The grant reduced onboarding barriers and costs, allowing Fery to bring women onto the platform faster without compromising on its rigorous safety standards. The impact was immediate and personal: one Sister Partner shared that after receiving her safety gear and completing the training, she felt significantly more confident navigating traffic and interacting with customers — an increase in confidence that directly improved her ride performance and earning consistency.
At the organizational level, the grant strengthened Fery's safety-first ecosystem and accelerated the team's ability to scale. In just four months, Fery grew from one pilot cab to a fleet of nine vehicles, onboarded 12 women drivers, and completed over 3,000 rides — demonstrating strong and growing demand for women-first mobility.
The Impact
The 10 Sister Partners directly supported by this grant are now serving an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 women passengers every month — women who travel with greater confidence knowing their driver is trained, verified, and operating within a platform built specifically for their safety. Beyond individual rides, the presence of more women drivers on the road is quietly shifting what's possible: more women commuting independently, more women entering the workforce, and more families supported by a Sister Partner's steady income.
For Fery as an organization, the grant reinforced a key insight: combining safety equipment, training, and financial support at the onboarding stage creates stronger, more confident, and more sustainable participation of women in the mobility sector. That lesson is now shaping how Fery scales.
Looking Ahead
Fery Rides is growing fast and deliberately. The team plans to onboard additional Sister Partners to meet rising demand, expand both on-demand and scheduled services, deepen partnerships with NGOs and training institutions, and continue strengthening the internal systems needed to support sustainable scale. The mission remains the same as it was on day one: safe roads, empowered women, and cleaner cities — one ride at a time.
