On-Demand Driver Aggregator DriveU Acquires Rival Zuver

Bengaluru-based on-demand driver aggregator DriveU has acquired Mumbai-based Zuver, in an all-equity deal.

“Zuver has been very successful with car dealerships, service stations, and car rental/leasing companies in Mumbai, Pune, and Bengaluru. Increasingly, businesses are demanding a national footprint for their on-demand driver needs. With this acquisition, DriveU will leverage Zuver’s strong suite to cater to customers across major metros that we operate in today,” said Ashok Shastry, co-founder and COO at DriveU.

With this move, Zuver co-founders Sovin Hegde and Sidhanth Mally will join DriveU. They will focus on driver aggregation for the car rental/lease and service station verticals of the business.

On-demand driver aggregator, DriveU was founded in June 2015 by Ramprasad Shastry, Ashok Shastry, and Amulmeet Singh Chadh. The startup is owned and operated by Humble Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd. A customer can book a driver using the app/website and track the driver.

On the other hand, Zuver provides location-specific, on-demand driver services. It was co-founded by Sidhanth Mally and Sovin Hegde in 2015, As per a company statement, Zuver’s B2B business completes over 8,000 trips every month. It has pan-India customers for car rental/lease service. The clientele includes corporations such as Orix and Avis for chauffeured services and its service station clients include Volkswagen, Maruti Suzuki, and Honda, etc.

Sovin Hegde, co-founder at Zuver said, “While Zuver focussed to serve businesses, DriveU successfully captured a majority of the consumer segment with its superior tech and a simple value proposition. We decided to join forces with DriveU to expand the market for on-demand drivers across multiple verticals.”

Post this acquisition, driver aggregator DriveU now has over 6,000 drivers on its platform. The cross utilisation of drivers between B2B and B2C businesses will help optimise operations.

Till date, it claims to have served over 200,000 trips to over 50,000 customers. The startup is aiming to field 10,000 drivers by the end of 2017.

DriveU offers curated drivers for personal vehicles. It has an INR 99 per hour charge. After the first hour, users only pay for the number of minutes they utilise the service. There is a one-way surcharge depending on distance travelled, which varies between INR 50/- and INR 150/- and a night-time surcharge of INR 200/- for trips ending between 11 PM and 6 AM. The outstation service is priced at INR 999/- per 24 hours, and INR 499/- per 12-hour blocks, thereafter.

In May 2017, DriveU acquired Chennai-based rival DriversKart in an all-equity deal. Earlier in February 2016, it raised $1 Mn in Seed funding from Unitus Seed Fund.

In May 2017, online classifieds platform Quikr acquired on-demand home services startup Zimmber. The acquisition was an all-stock deal valued at about $10 Mn. Zimmber also provides on-demand driver services. Other players in this segment, that compete with DriveU include Driver Bulao, DriveBud, Hire4Drive, UrbanClap, etc.