India's leading self-drive mobility platform Zoomcar on Friday announced closing funding worth USD 40 million in a Series C investment round, with Mahindra & Mahindra leading the new round.
With other variety of existing investors participating, Zoomcar intends to utilize the funds primarily for accelerating its marketplace supply growth, improving its lead within applied IoT technologies, and expanding into additional mobility categories across India.
The company has witnessed robust growth with its ZAP marketplace in 2017 as these vehicles now account for over 25 percent of its 3,000 + total fleet. Most recently, Zoomcar introduced ZAP Subscribe, India's first monthly subscription based program for cars.
The subscription offering endeavours to reduce all friction related to obtaining a personal vehicle by dramatically reducing the upfront payment, eliminating documentation, and ensuring instantaneous delivery of the vehicle.
Through the ZAP platform, subscribers can reduce their monthly subscription charges by 70 percent on an average, thereby creating a highly efficient option for accessing a personal vehicle.
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.
Zoomcar expects this fresh funding to help the Company hit over 15,000 subscriber vehicles on the platform before the end of 2018. 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.
"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," said co-founder and CEO, Zoomcar, Greg Moran.
Mahindra is the recognized leader within the SUV and EV segments today in India. Mahindra SUVs already form a majority of Zoomcar's fleet within that segment. With respect to electric collaboration, Zoomcar recently launched E2O plus vehicles across Mysore, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
In coming months, Zoomcar expects to add another 500 + Mahindra E2Os across >20 cities pan-India. Zoomcar and Mahindra expect to closely collaborate on electric charging infrastructure to further expand the use cases for EVs.
As the global mobility industry continues to evolve, Zoomcar seeks to create even clearer differentiation from driver based mobility platforms such as Ola or Uber. Zoomcar's focus on convenience, flexibility, and privacy continue to serve different use cases when compared to other non-self-drive offerings.
The Series C fundraise will allow Zoomcar to double down on its strong community building efforts to ensure it maintains its high customer retention levels.
Zoomcar was advised on this transaction by J. Sagar Associates, Advocates, and Solicitors out of Bangalore.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
