Unlike taxis used daily, tourism-transport services such as charter buses and chauffeur-included rental cars operate almost entirely on reservations — yet dispatch and fleet control still depend on analog tools like phone calls and spreadsheets. We sat down with GroundK, a startup determined to transform this space through technology.
What is the problem?
Having spent 15 years personally working in the tourism-transport industry, I came to realize there was simply no proper management system built for transport operators. Dispatch, fleet control, and other core operations still rely on analog tools — spreadsheets, phone calls, and messaging apps. This labor-intensive environment drives up costs, creates human-error risks that are hard to manage, and ultimately leads to customer churn.
What is the solution, and what sets GroundK apart?
GroundK has developed T-RiseUp, a cloud-based operations solution purpose-built for the tourism-transport industry. It gives charter-type transport operators the kind of professional IT management system that public-transit bus companies already use, boosting digital competitiveness and operational performance.
B2C transport services — general taxis, express buses — have already undergone significant digitization. But the reservation-based dispatch market we target, covering charter buses and chauffeur-included rental cars, remains stuck in an analog environment. We are not a simple customer-driver matching service like a taxi app. We aim to be a B2B system that manages an organization's entire mobility service — for corporations, institutions, and similar clients.
Within the travel and tourism industry, aviation, accommodation, and activities all have B2B asset-management systems. Transportation is the most digitally underdeveloped segment. While comparable B2B systems exist in the United States and Europe, they are available only in English, making them impractical in non-English-speaking markets. Google Maps, which those platforms rely on, also fails to provide navigation in many of our target regions — a technical gap we have resolved as a key differentiator.
A closer look at T-RiseUp
T-RiseUp digitizes the full service lifecycle — reservation, dispatch (vehicle and driver assignment), GPS-based fleet tracking, and settlement — giving transport operators both convenience and meaningful cost and resource savings. Reservation managers can monitor every stage of a journey (scheduled, in transit, waiting, in progress, completed) in real time through a single integrated interface. Key features include:
- Real-time vehicle location tracking
- Flight-number input with live airport arrival and departure data integration
- Map-based fare services
- Multi-language support — English as the base, with local-language options — enabling use anywhere in the world
A domestic market worth KRW 10 trillion
Korea's chauffeur-included vehicle-service sector alone is enormous. Charter buses — commonly called tourism buses — are operated by around 1,700 companies running approximately 40,000 vehicles nationwide. Add the chauffeur-included rental-car market, corporate driver services, and the non-drinking designated-driver segment, and total revenue reaches KRW 10 trillion. Our core targets within this market are charter-bus operators, premium and tourism taxis, call-van services, non-drinking designated drivers, and mobility-service providers for people with disabilities.
GroundK raised KRW 1 billion in a Pre-Series A round in June from KBridge Investment and the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund — recognition of the progress made so far. Following the COVID-19 period, we doubled down on system development and broadened our identity to vehicle-service delivery through technology. Our international expansion will begin with markets that require software in local languages beyond English — Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia — before scaling toward a hub that connects Asian operators with customers in the Americas and Europe.
▸ View original: WowTale