Droom Rolls Out New Offering To Tap Into Automobile Rental Market

Droom has rolled out its new offering, Droom Rental, aiming to address the challenges in the automobile rental market. 

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the company said it has added this new category that leverages tech and AI to offer 25,000 plus automobiles across more than 9 categories including cars, buses, coaches, helicopters, planes, yachts, ambulances, scooters, bikes, and bicycles. 

The company claimed that Droom Rentals has already secured over 1,500 listings from over 100 rental suppliers across 25 plus cities within a week of its launch. 

“At present, the automobile rental market is highly unorganised, with serious trust deficit, lack of transparent pricing and non-standard experience with limited adoption of technology and AI for a $23 Bn automobile rental market in India,” the company said in a statement. 

“ While the ride-hailing segment has successfully integrated advanced technology and streamlined operations, other rental categories such as daily rental, corporate rental, wedding rental, employee transportation solution and event rental etc remain largely unorganized, inefficient and full of fragmented providers,” Droom said expressing its intention to tap into the unorganised rental market. 

Droom’s founder & CEO Sandeep Aggarwal said, “Automobile rental has been a long-standing pain-point for me as the sector lacks trust, transparency, standardization, large/diverse fleet or premium fleet option and technology played no role.”

Founded in 2014 by Sandeep Aggarwal, Droom offers an ecommerce platform where it connects used car dealers with customers. The startup also provides financing through its tie-ups with banks and NBFCs. The startup has secured a cumulative funding of $296.00 Mn to date. Spinny: Founded in 2015 and based in Gurgaon, Spinny operates as a pre-owned car trading platform. It allows users to select cars online, book test drives, and purchase vehicles. Spinny, Cars24, CarDekho are the competitors of Droom. 

The startup primarily earns revenue from commissions from buyers, income from seller subscriptions, and advertisement fees. 

On the financial front, Car marketplace Droom’s India entity halved its loss in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. The startup managed to narrow its net loss by 55% to INR 62.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 137 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

However, its operating revenue also plunged during the year under review. Droom reported an operating revenue of INR 253.2 Cr in FY23, a decline of 34% from INR 384.6 Cr in the previous fiscal year.