Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
money

Drivezy — a self-drive car rental startup has announced that it has secured around ₹65 crore, or $10 million in a new funding round. The round saw a mix of equity investment as well as debt-based investment.

USA- and Japan-based investors, including Axan Partners, Das Capital and IT Farm, have made an equity-based investment of around ₹32.5 crore ($5 million).

A consortium of banks and NBFCs including Mahindra Finance, ICICI Bank, Cholamandalam Finance and Shriram Finance has invested the rest of ₹32.5 crore ($5 million) in debt.

With this new funding round, the total investment raised by the Bangalore-based startup stands at around ₹107 crore ($16.5 million).

The majority part of the funding raised in the current round will be used by Drivezy towards introducing bitcoin as a payment option. It also plans to build initiatives around it to allow for global ownership of its fleet.

The startup has partnered with Unocoin to enable bitcoin transactions and has also launched its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to enable ownership of vehicles on its platform across the globe through bitcoins.

Commenting on the expansion plans for the company, Ashwarya Singh, co-founder of the company, said,

We will be launching cycle rentals in Bengaluru next month. We are also looking to launch operations (for cars and bikes) in Kochi, Udaipur, Chennai and Hyderabad next.

Drivezy, founded in 2015 by Vasant VermaAbhishek MahajanAmit Sahu, and Ashwarya Singh, was formerly known as JustRide. The startup describes itself as a car-sharing platform which helps people turn their vehicles into earning members of their family.

Earlier this year, the company introduced bike rentals service, and claims to have a fleet of over 1,300 vehicles listed across four cities. The fleet has about 1,000 cars with the remaining being bikes.

The startup claims a monthly growth rate of 25 percent and 20,000 bookings per month. It also claims to be generating about ₹1.3 crore in monthly revenues. It is targeting to turn profitable by March 2018.

By Jeet