Zoomcar announces appointment of Ashu Singhal as Chief Technology & Product Officer

Ashu will be instrumental in driving the technology & product vision to advance the car sharing experience on the Zoomcar marketplace

Zoomcar, the leading marketplace for car sharing in emerging markets, today announced the appointment of Ashu Singhal as their Chief Technology & Product Officer. Ashu in his new role will be overseeing the overall product strategy and engineering execution to deliver great customer experience across all the markets where Zoomcar operates. Ashu is directly responsible for product vision & strategy, product design, product development, product marketing, user research and analytics functions.

Before joining Zoomcar, Ashu headed the Fulfilment and Marketplace team at Grab Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: GRAB), a Nasdaq listed application-based transportation, grocery, food, and parcel delivery services platform. While at GRAB, Ashu assisted in scaling its marketplace from 800,000 daily bookings to 10 million + daily bookings and managed supply, demand, pricing, and allocation platforms for all GRAB businesses. Priorly, he wore multiple hats in Engineering and Product Management roles in some of the world’s top technology companies like Microsoft, Walmartlabs and Ola. 

“We are delighted to welcome Ashu Singhal to Zoomcar as the Chief Technology & Product Officer. With a career in technology that spans more than 15 years across different markets like India and Southeast Asia, Ashu brings incredible depth of experience in the consumer online marketplaces. In his new role Ashu will drive the technology & product vision to advance the car sharing experience on the Zoomcar marketplace, as the company continues to expand globally” said Greg Moran, CEO and Co-Founder Zoomcar. 

Ashu Singhal, Chief Technology & Product Officer, Zoomcar added “I am very excited to be joining Zoomcar at this important stage of its growth. I look forward to working closely with Zoomcar senior executives and leaders across functions and play an active role in assisting with Zoomcar’s business operations and growth to help the company reach new heights.”

About Zoomcar

Zoomcar is the leading marketplace for car sharing in emerging markets, with over 20,000 cars on its technology-driven platform across India, Southeast Asia, and Egypt. Zoomcar empowers host entrepreneurs to safely and easily share their cars to earn additional passive income. Guests in the Zoomcar community enjoy a diverse, affordable selection of cars to unlock memorable driving experiences with friends and family. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Bengaluru, India, Zoomcar employs over 300 people and operates in 50 cities across India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Egypt. Uri Levine, the co-founder of mobility unicorns Waze and Moovit, currently serves as Zoomcar’s Chairman of the Board

Zoomcar brings 100% Off on Car Rentals With Its 'LoveYouBack' Initiative

Zoomcar has completed six years into promoting self-drive and shared mobility solutions in India. On its 6th year anniversary, it has come up with a ground-breaking new offer to usher the country into a wave of shared mobility services. Under its new ‘LoveYouBack’ Sale, Zoomcar is giving 100% OFF on all self-drive bookings made on 29-30-31st May for booking period from 8th June to 25th Nov. Which means users get the ride for FREE.

Zoomcar has completed six years into promoting self-drive and shared mobility solutions in India. On its 6th year anniversary, it has come up with a ground-breaking new offer to usher the country into a wave of shared mobility services. Under its new ‘LoveYouBack’ Sale, Zoomcar is giving 100% OFF on all self-drive bookings made on 29-30-31st May for booking period from 8th June to 25th Nov. Which means users get the ride for FREE. Apart from the whopping 100% OFF, the cornerstone of the sale event is the fact that customers get to avail the offer with ZERO Cancellation charges! Which basically immunes them against any kind of loss even if they do advance booking for any period between June’19 to Nov’19 but then cancel it owing to change of plans.

Apart from Zoomcar's gigantic offer, Free Flight Vouchers from Paytm Flights and Experiential Holiday Vouchers from Club Mahindra are up for grab. Not only that, there's an assured discount hamper of INR 10,000/- from partners like OYO, Flipkart, Titan, Cleartrip and Paytm on every booking.

Commenting on the latest development, Greg Moran, Founder & CEO, Zoomcar, said, “Six years really fly! For Zoomcar, it's been an incredible journey since we pioneered the concept of self-drive rentals in India. From our first city in 2013 to our 47th city in 2019, we've served over 7 million transactions. Nearly 5 million individuals have experienced a Zoomcar over this time. Simply put, this journey wouldn't have been possible without our esteemed customer base. To help show our appreciation, we're giving back a healthy dose of self-drive love in the form of a special anniversary sale to commemorate 6 years on the road. From May 29-31st, we're opening up our vast inventory ever to self-drive enthusiasts to avail 100% OFF on every car booking they make for the booking period between 8th June till 25th Nov, a once in a generation offers across the board.”
About Zoomcar

Zoomcar holds the distinction of being India’s first self-drive mobility platform, with the introduction of car sharing services in 2013 and today is the market leader in the self-drive space with over 7000 cars in its fleet. With a strong focus on the mobile experience, Zoomcar allows users to rent cars by the hour, day, week, or month. Headquartered in Bangalore, Zoomcar is over 250 people strong and operates in nearly 45 cities across India. In 2017, Zoomcar introduced India’s first peer2peer based marketplace for cars with the launch of ZAP Subscribe. In February 2018, Zoomcar inaugurated India’s first car subscription program under the ZAP umbrella.

Car Rental Startup Zoomcar Raises Fresh $3.5 Mn from Trifecta Capital

After raising whopping $40 million in a Series C funding, in February this year, Bengaluru-based car rental startup Zoomcar has raised fresh $3.6 million (~ Rs 25 crore) in debt fund from Silicon Valley-based Trifecta Venture Debt Fund, says the company's recent filings with Registrar of Companies (RoC).

Touted as India's first 100% self-drive focused car rental company without chauffeurs, Zoomcar has raised a total of about US$104 million in 10 rounds of fundings from high profile investors including Ford's Smart Mobility, Mahindra, Sequoia capital and Empire Angels, among others.

Commenced its operations in February 2013, the company now operates a fleet of over 3,000 vehicles across 27 cities including Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Vizag, Jaipur, and Mysore, among others. For the fiscal year 2017, Zoomcar had recorded a revenue of Rs 121 crore.

Zoomcar has recently launched Mahindra e20Plus electric vehicles across Mysore, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Thereafter, it was also reported to have added another 500+ Mahindra EVs across more than 20 cities pan-India, in the first half of 2018.

Founded in 2013 by American duo David Back and Greg Moran, Zoomcar was started with $215,000 in capital and a fleet of seven cars and then initially raised capital from individual investors including former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Chair of the UK Institute of Directors Lady Barbara Judge and the former Director of the Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Shai Vyakarnam. Zoomcar has also raised money from former Infosys CFO T.V. Mohandas Pai and his business partner Abhay Jain.

In October last year, Zoomcar launched PEDL, India’s first dockless cycle sharing service. The service currently operates across 10 cities with a fleet of more than 3,000 cycles.

In February this year, , an another Bengaluru-based car rental startup Drivezy raised $5 million via Initial Coin Offering, an unregulated means by which funds are raised for a new cryptocurrency venture.

Via - DealStreetAsia | Source - Yourstory | References - Wikipedia.org/Zoomcar

Car Rental Startup Zoomcar Raises Fresh $3.5 Mn from Trifecta Capital

After raising whopping $40 million in a Series C funding, in February this year, Bengaluru-based car rental startup Zoomcar has raised fresh $3.6 million (~ Rs 25 crore) in debt fund from Silicon Valley-based Trifecta Venture Debt Fund, says the company's recent filings with Registrar of Companies (RoC).

Touted as India's first 100% self-drive focused car rental company without chauffeurs, Zoomcar has raised a total of about US$104 million in 10 rounds of fundings from high profile investors including Ford's Smart Mobility, Mahindra, Sequoia capital and Empire Angels, among others.

Commenced its operations in February 2013, the company now operates a fleet of over 3,000 vehicles across 27 cities including Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Vizag, Jaipur, and Mysore, among others. For the fiscal year 2017, Zoomcar had recorded a revenue of Rs 121 crore.

Zoomcar has recently launched Mahindra e20Plus electric vehicles across Mysore, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Thereafter, it was also reported to have added another 500+ Mahindra EVs across more than 20 cities pan-India, in the first half of 2018.

Founded in 2013 by American duo David Back and Greg Moran, Zoomcar was started with $215,000 in capital and a fleet of seven cars and then initially raised capital from individual investors including former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Chair of the UK Institute of Directors Lady Barbara Judge and the former Director of the Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Shai Vyakarnam. Zoomcar has also raised money from former Infosys CFO T.V. Mohandas Pai and his business partner Abhay Jain.

In October last year, Zoomcar launched PEDL, India’s first dockless cycle sharing service. The service currently operates across 10 cities with a fleet of more than 3,000 cycles.

In February this year, , an another Bengaluru-based car rental startup Drivezy raised $5 million via Initial Coin Offering, an unregulated means by which funds are raised for a new cryptocurrency venture.

Via - DealStreetAsia | Source - Yourstory | References - Wikipedia.org/Zoomcar

Mahindra Electric Cars Now Available on Rent in Delhi Via Zoomcar

Domestic automobile major Mahindra's electric vehicle (EV) subsidiary Mahindra Electric announced that it would deploy a fleet of 100 units of its small electric car Mahindra e2o in Delhi to be available to consumers on rent in partnership with Bengaluru-based self-drive car rental firm Zoomcar.

Both the companies have extended their collaboration to Delhi post similar collaboration in Mysuru, Hyderabad and Jaipur.

The initiative is aimed at promoting connected, shared and electric mobility as a model, in line with the recommendations in the NITI Aayog report on the government’s 2030 vision.

It is to be noted that Mahindra had picked up a 16 percent equity stake at Rs 176 crore in Zoomcar in February this year.

"Mahindra Electric has been a pioneer in the EV space and continuously explores associations to increase adoption of Electric Vehicles in the country. Today, we are happy to extend our association with Zoomcar and introduce our EVs on the shared mobility platform in Delhi," said Mahesh Babu, CEO, Mahindra Electric. "The government of Delhi has been very supportive, and is in fact one of the only states to offer additional financial incentives to promote adoption of EVs amongst its citizens. We are confident that this move will help more people adopt EV as a technology and will contribute in the India's journey towards a greener future for the country."

The vehicles under this initiative are financed by LeasePlan. In addition to this, Zoomcar has a larger financing arrangement with Mahindra Finance, which will see Zoomcar obtain customised EV financing.

"As the national capital, Delhi has consistently shown visionary leadership on various sustainable initiatives such as the Metro, Odd-Even, and CNG infrastructure," said Greg Moran, Co-Founder and CEO, Zoomcar. "Today's roll out of 100 EVs coupled with best-in-class fast charging infrastructure is an extension of the Delhi government's vision for a cleaner, greener India. Zoomcar is pleased to partner with the Mahindra Electric team once again to lead the transition to an all-electric urban mobility model."

This is not the first time that Mahindra, after acquiring Reva Car Company the erstwhile owner of e2o in 2010, has tried to push the e2o in the taxi cab market. In September 2013, it had tied up with India's largest cab company Carzonrent to offer self drive options with the car in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. It was then available for Rs 100 per hour or Rs 800 for the entire day. The experiment fizzled out as it failed to enthuse consumers.

The above development was first reported in Business Today.

Electric Mobility Activities in India

Few days back, a Mumbai-based startup called Strom Motors has unveiled an electric car that would cost mere ₹3 lakh. The electric car however is of compact segment and unlike other e-cars has three wheels instead of four.

In January, IndianWeb2 reported that Hriman Motors, a Delhi-based startup, is working on building a 2-Seater electric car which one can rent for 50 Paise per kilometer. The electric car will have a battery that will never need to be replaced and will be IoT-enabled. The car is expected to launch in mid of this year.

A draft of India’s 10-year energy blueprint has revealed that the government is expecting as much as 57 percent of the country’s total electricity capacity to come from non-fossil fuel sources by the year 2027 -- a significant increase over the India's Paris agreement targets, which has asked the member countries to reach 40 percent non-fossil fuel electricity by the year 2030.

Last May, Indian government established policy think tank, Niti Aayog, released a report called Transformative Mobility Solutions for India wherein it revealed India's plan for electric cars and charging stations infrastructure.

In the same month, India’s home-grown cab hailing firm, Ola had launched - Ola Electric, India’s first multi-modal electric platform that includes electric autos, cars, and buses in Nagpur. Ola and Mahindra have had partnered with the Government of India in a first-of- its-kind programme to build an electric mass mobility ecosystem in Nagpur which will bring about a transformational change in the automotive and transportation landscape in the country.

[Top Image - News18.com]

Zoomcar Raises $40 Mn in Series C Funding From Mahindra

Bengaluru-based car rental startup Zoomcar today announced that it has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round led by Mahindra & Mahindra along with participation from a variety of existing investors, reported ETAuto.

The funds raised will be used by the startup primarily for accelerating its marketplace supply growth, improving its lead within applied IoT technologies, and expanding into additional mobility categories across India.

Till date, Zoomcar has raised a total of $100.2 million of capital in eight rounds. It last raised $15 million in a funding round led by Venturesouq and Cyber Carier, in December 2016. Prior to that, it raised $24 million in Series B, in August 2016.

Notably, this is not the first association of Mahindra with Zoomcar as earlier, in last year, the two companies announced a partnership to introduce electric vehicles (EV) into the shared mobility space.

Zoomcar recently launched Mahindra e20Plus electric vehicles across Mysore, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Going forward it expects to add another 500+ Mahindra EVs across more than 20 cities pan-India, in the first half of 2018.

“We’re incredibly excited to welcome the Mahindra team on board for this next phase of growth within the Indian self-drive mobility space. Our collaboration with Mahindra dates back to 2013 when we first kicked off in Bangalore. Most importantly, Mahindra shares Zoomcar’s vision for multi-modal urban mobility and we look forward to leveraging their diverse platform to help accelerate the transformation to a shared, electric mobility future for India,” Greg Moran, co-founder & CEO, Zoomcar.

Zoomcar expects this fresh funding to help the Company hit over 15,000 subscriber vehicles on the platform before the end of 2018.

In October 2017, Zoomcar launched PEDL, India’s first dockless cycle sharing service. The service currently operates across 10 cities with a fleet of more than 3,000 cycles. The service currently completes nearly 15,000 rides per day and partners with leading universities, IT parks, residential societies, Municipal Corporations, and Smart City groups.

The Company also expects to dramatically increase its cycle count to meet the robust customer demand. Zoomcar envisions that its PEDL service will operate across more than 75 cities by year end.

In August 2017, the company has launched HOP, a one-way intercity self-drive service, through which Zoomcar firmly cemented its market leadership position in the overall car renting space in India.

This month, an another Bengaluru-based car rental startup Drivezy raised $5 million via Initial Coin Offering, an unregulated means by which funds are raised for a new cryptocurrency venture.

Zoomcar Raises $40 Mn in Series C Funding From Mahindra

Bengaluru-based car rental startup Zoomcar today announced that it has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round led by Mahindra & Mahindra along with participation from a variety of existing investors, reported ETAuto.

The funds raised will be used by the startup primarily for accelerating its marketplace supply growth, improving its lead within applied IoT technologies, and expanding into additional mobility categories across India.

Till date, Zoomcar has raised a total of $100.2 million of capital in eight rounds. It last raised $15 million in a funding round led by Venturesouq and Cyber Carier, in December 2016. Prior to that, it raised $24 million in Series B, in August 2016.

Notably, this is not the first association of Mahindra with Zoomcar as earlier, in last year, the two companies announced a partnership to introduce electric vehicles (EV) into the shared mobility space.

Zoomcar recently launched Mahindra e20Plus electric vehicles across Mysore, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Going forward it expects to add another 500+ Mahindra EVs across more than 20 cities pan-India, in the first half of 2018.

“We’re incredibly excited to welcome the Mahindra team on board for this next phase of growth within the Indian self-drive mobility space. Our collaboration with Mahindra dates back to 2013 when we first kicked off in Bangalore. Most importantly, Mahindra shares Zoomcar’s vision for multi-modal urban mobility and we look forward to leveraging their diverse platform to help accelerate the transformation to a shared, electric mobility future for India,” Greg Moran, co-founder & CEO, Zoomcar.

Zoomcar expects this fresh funding to help the Company hit over 15,000 subscriber vehicles on the platform before the end of 2018.

In October 2017, Zoomcar launched PEDL, India’s first dockless cycle sharing service. The service currently operates across 10 cities with a fleet of more than 3,000 cycles. The service currently completes nearly 15,000 rides per day and partners with leading universities, IT parks, residential societies, Municipal Corporations, and Smart City groups.

The Company also expects to dramatically increase its cycle count to meet the robust customer demand. Zoomcar envisions that its PEDL service will operate across more than 75 cities by year end.

In August 2017, the company has launched HOP, a one-way intercity self-drive service, through which Zoomcar firmly cemented its market leadership position in the overall car renting space in India.

This month, an another Bengaluru-based car rental startup Drivezy raised $5 million via Initial Coin Offering, an unregulated means by which funds are raised for a new cryptocurrency venture.

Zoomcar Announces the Launch of HOP, the One-way Intercity Self-Drive Service Across 24 Cities

Zoomcar, India’s first 100% self-drive car rental company, announced the launch of Hop, the one-way intercity self-drive service. With this one-way segment, Zoomcar firmly cements its market leadership position in the overall car renting space in India. Zoomcar’ s new one-way intercity self-service allows a customer to travel from point A to point B which will enable customers to pick up a car from Zoomcar location from one city and drop it off to another city at a Zoomcar location. The launch of one-way intercity launch adds flexibility and options to people’s travel plans.

Zoomcar is bringing new innovations to the Hop service which will be available across 24 cities including intra-state and eventually inter-state routes as well. The 24 city routes are Bangalore – Mysore, Bangalore – Mangalore, Mangalore – Mysore, Bombay – Pune, Ahmedabad – Surat, Kolkata – Siliguri, Chennai – Coimbatore, Vijayawada – Vizag. Zoomcar caters to an audience where travelers are seeking self-drive purpose for both business and leisure purpose.

Speaking on the same, Greg Moran, CEO & Co-founder, Zoomcar, “With the launch of our pathbreaking one way, inter-city self-drive rental product, Hop, we're offering a whole new level of convenience for our 20 lacs+ Zoomcar customer base. After careful study and countless deliberations with customers, we have designed a product offering that caters to a wide range of point to point, intercity self-drive use cases. We anticipate strong demand for Hop from both business and leisure travelers. We look forward to pushing out to more than 30 routes later this quarter.”

He further added, “We have expanded from 7 cities in 2016 to 24 cities in 2017 and have witnessed an increase in number of cities as well as number of cars simultaneously. With increasing cities and cars, there is a need to augment the demand and traffic to match the increase in supply. With the Hop launch, our primary focus is to target those travelers who are specifically seeking to travel on a daily or weekly basis. With our dramatic city expansion, it has given us an opportunity to start one-way intercity travel option which is one of the ways we can manage our weekday demand for usage of cars.”

The procedure for booking a car will be done through the app or website. The user will be asked about their drop off city and location. Based on the provided pickup and drop off, the minimum duration is computed to cover the distance. The price of the fuel is included. The price of the trip will be decided by the hours required to cover the distance between starting point to destination with 20km/hr.

Zoomcar Appoints Rajesh Bysani as Chief Product Officer

Zoomcar, Indian self-drive car rental company has appointed Rajesh Bysani as the Chief Product Officer. Rajesh’s experience and leadership skills will allow Zoomcar to speed product innovation, expand into new markets and deliver exceptional customer value.

Rajesh comes with an experience of more than 10 years of working with renowned start-ups in the country. He has been part of companies at a very early stage and has been instrumental in growing the companies by 30-40X. Rajesh brings a proven record of success, where he recently led product & growth at FreeCharge. Prior to FreeCharge, Rajesh was the AVP - Products at redBus where he was leading the B2C product & helped launch the mobile
strategy. Rajesh will work out of the Zoomcar headquarter office in Bengaluru.

“Our goal is to become the most trusted, efficient and flexible self-drive car rental platform in India. Robust product and technology innovation is critical for us to achieve that objective. Our overall customer experience is one of the key verticals of our technology infrastructure and we are looking at strengthening it further to offer a superior experience to our customers. Rajesh comes with best-in-class product and technology leadership experience, global exposure and an entrepreneurial mindset. This is a unique mix and one that blends seamlessly with the work environment and culture at Zoomcar. We are delighted to have Rajesh on-board and wish him a great journey ahead with the Zoomcar family," said Greg Moran, CEO and co-founder.

Zoomcar recently closed a $24M Series B round of funding, led by Ford Smart Mobility LLC, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. The fresh war chest will be used primarily for accelerating its innovative marketplace model while furthering its technological lead around the overall customer experience. The company recently launched initiatives like doorstep delivery and ZAP(Zoomcar Associate Program) to further enhance user experience on its platform.

ZAP, launched earlier in 2016, allows individuals to purchase vehicles on behalf of Zoomcar, list the vehicle on a dynamic basis on its platform, and then finally share in the profit on a monthly basis. The company has witnessed robust adoption with an associate base that’s tripling month on month. Zoomcar expects this marketplace model will account for over 75% of its overall vehicle inventory by early 2017. The funding will allow Zoomcar to reach a fleet size of >25,000 across 25+ cities by 2018. Along the way, Zoomcar will also significantly expand its current airport offering across all cities.

Zoomcar’s growth in the self-drive car rental space has been unprecedented. The clarity of vision and rigorous effort behind strengthening the vertical is commendable. With innovative products that are complemented and supported by Zoomcar’s cutting-edge technology and highly customised solutions, I believe we can upgrade operational efficiency, ensure exceptional consumer experiences and scale the ZAP marketplace to multiple cities in a short span of time. I’m thrilled to be part of a brand that has industry recognition for product innovation, employee culture and customer success,” said Rajesh Bysani, Chief Product Officer (CPO).

Zoomcar Appoints Rajesh Bysani as Chief Product Officer

Zoomcar, Indian self-drive car rental company has appointed Rajesh Bysani as the Chief Product Officer. Rajesh’s experience and leadership skills will allow Zoomcar to speed product innovation, expand into new markets and deliver exceptional customer value.

Rajesh comes with an experience of more than 10 years of working with renowned start-ups in the country. He has been part of companies at a very early stage and has been instrumental in growing the companies by 30-40X. Rajesh brings a proven record of success, where he recently led product & growth at FreeCharge. Prior to FreeCharge, Rajesh was the AVP - Products at redBus where he was leading the B2C product & helped launch the mobile
strategy. Rajesh will work out of the Zoomcar headquarter office in Bengaluru.

“Our goal is to become the most trusted, efficient and flexible self-drive car rental platform in India. Robust product and technology innovation is critical for us to achieve that objective. Our overall customer experience is one of the key verticals of our technology infrastructure and we are looking at strengthening it further to offer a superior experience to our customers. Rajesh comes with best-in-class product and technology leadership experience, global exposure and an entrepreneurial mindset. This is a unique mix and one that blends seamlessly with the work environment and culture at Zoomcar. We are delighted to have Rajesh on-board and wish him a great journey ahead with the Zoomcar family," said Greg Moran, CEO and co-founder.

Zoomcar recently closed a $24M Series B round of funding, led by Ford Smart Mobility LLC, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. The fresh war chest will be used primarily for accelerating its innovative marketplace model while furthering its technological lead around the overall customer experience. The company recently launched initiatives like doorstep delivery and ZAP(Zoomcar Associate Program) to further enhance user experience on its platform.

ZAP, launched earlier in 2016, allows individuals to purchase vehicles on behalf of Zoomcar, list the vehicle on a dynamic basis on its platform, and then finally share in the profit on a monthly basis. The company has witnessed robust adoption with an associate base that’s tripling month on month. Zoomcar expects this marketplace model will account for over 75% of its overall vehicle inventory by early 2017. The funding will allow Zoomcar to reach a fleet size of >25,000 across 25+ cities by 2018. Along the way, Zoomcar will also significantly expand its current airport offering across all cities.

Zoomcar’s growth in the self-drive car rental space has been unprecedented. The clarity of vision and rigorous effort behind strengthening the vertical is commendable. With innovative products that are complemented and supported by Zoomcar’s cutting-edge technology and highly customised solutions, I believe we can upgrade operational efficiency, ensure exceptional consumer experiences and scale the ZAP marketplace to multiple cities in a short span of time. I’m thrilled to be part of a brand that has industry recognition for product innovation, employee culture and customer success,” said Rajesh Bysani, Chief Product Officer (CPO).

Zoomcar Raises $24M in Series B Funding Round

Zoomcar, India’s leading self-drive* car rental company offering car sharing services, has announced that it has closed $24M in a Series B investment round. Ford Smart Mobility LLC, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, led the round alongside existing investors Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) and Empire Angels.

Zoomcar’s capital raise will be used primarily for accelerating its innovative marketplace model along with furthering its technological lead. The Zoomcar Associate Program (ZAP) launched earlier in 2016, thereby allowing individuals to purchase vehicles on behalf of Zoomcar, list the vehicle on a dynamic basis on its platform, and then finally share in the profit on a monthly basis.  The company has witnessed robust adoption with an associate base that’s growing exponentially month on month. Zoomcar expects this marketplace model will account for over 75% of its overall vehicle inventory by early 2017.  The funding will allow Zoomcar to reach a fleet size of >25,000 across 25+ cities by 2018.  Moreover, Zoomcar will significantly expand its current airport offering across all cities.

"We’re thrilled to welcome the Ford team on board for this next phase of growth in the Indian self-drive space. Ford was our very first OEM partner back in 2013 and this announcement just cements the fact that the two companies share many of the same core values and vision related to urban mobility.  Customer experience will remain our highest priority as we scale ZAP across India in the months ahead and our relationship with Ford will no doubt help us create a world leading marketplace experience for both our customers and associates”- Greg Moran - Co Founder and CEO, Zoomcar.

Zoomcar is in a unique position as the country’s first and largest 100% self-drive car rental company, offering car sharing services.  It’s currently operational in 7 cities pan-India with a fleet presence of nearly 2,000 cars.
Zoomcar’s economical pricing and flexible service model aims to transform consumer behaviour and offer them additional mobility choices including shared car ownership.

Ford has been Zoomcar’s largest supplier of vehicles and both companies have worked closely on a number of mobility experiments. Ford’s investment supports the company’s focus on smart mobility and its vision to enable consumers to easily travel between locations.

“As Ford expands its business to be both an auto and mobility company, we are pursuing a long-term vision to develop services and solutions that make it easier for consumers to move through cities using multiple modes of transportation,” said John Larsen, mobility director, Ford Asia Pacific. “Our investment in Zoomcar will help strengthen the company’s role in shaping India’s developing mobility space and provide new transportation options to help make people’s lives better.”

Well into its fourth year of operations, Zoomcar continues to see widespread and growing demand from across India and has doubled bookings in the past year with a fleet of nearly 2,000 cars, >75% occupancy, 1.5 million app downloads, and users who have traveled over 12,00,00,000kms (and counting) to over 50,000 destinations in the country.

With the dramatic vehicle count increase in recent years, the country’s urban centers are facing large scale challenges, ranging from extreme traffic congestion, dire air pollution, and a chronic unavailability of parking. Zoomcar offers an innovative solution to this predicament as a single car is used by multiple customers every month.

Zoomcar holds the distinction of being India’s first 100% self-drive car rental company, offering car sharing services. It allows users to rent cars by the hour, day, week, or month. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Bangalore, its services are presently spread across Bangalore, Pune, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi NCR. Its vehicle catalogue offers a wide and extensive variety of cars for self-drive, ranging from hatchbacks to SUVs to luxury vehicles. The company’s ever expanding fleet which is currently clocking nearly 2,000 cars includes Ford Figo and Ecosport.

*Note: In India, the term “self-drive” implies a car that is driven by an individual, not an autonomous vehicle.