Zoomcar, a Bangalore-based startup that offers self-drive car rentals, has announced that it has secured around Rs 257 crore ($40 million) in its new Series C funding round. The round was led by Mahindra & Mahindra, along with the participation of the company’s existing investors.
The new capital infusion will be used by the company to accelerate its marketplace supply growth, improving its lead within applied IoT technologies, and expanding into additional mobility categories across India.
The company was founded by Greg Moran and David Back in the year 2012. However, David Back left the company in May 2015. It claims to have witnessed robust growth with its ZAP marketplace in 2017 as these vehicles now account for over 25% of its 3,000 + total fleet.
Recently, the company also introduced ZAP Subscribe, India’s first monthly subscription-based program for cars. In October last year, it launched PEDL, which is claimed to be India’s first dockless bicycle sharing service. PEDL currently operates across 10 cities with a fleet of more than 3,000 cycles and completes nearly 15,000 rides per day and partners with leading universities, IT parks, residential societies, Municipal Corporations, and Smart City groups.
With this new funding round, the company is expecting to hit over 15,000 subscriber vehicles on the platform before the end of 2018. The company also envisions that its PEDL service will operate across more than 75 cities by year-end.
Its noteworthy that Mahindra and Mahindra forged a partnership with Zoomcar in November last year. With the collaboration, Zoomcar recently launched E2O plus vehicles across Mysore, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
Going forward, the company expects to add more than 500 Mahindra E2Os across more than 20 cities pan-India. Zoomcar and Mahindra expect to closely collaborate on electric charging infrastructure to further expand the use cases for EVs.