Sequoia Invests $8 Mn In Self Drive Car Rental Startup Zoomcar

Bangalore based self drive car rental startup Zoomcar has raised $ 8 Mn in a funding round from Sequoia Capital.

Started in Bangalore in February 2013, with 7 vehicles at 1 location, Zoomcar now has over 250 cars at about 40 locations across Bangalore and Pune.

Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai, Abhay Jain of the Manipal Group, and Zoomcar’s previous investors including Empire Angels, FundersClub, Basset Investment Group, also participated in this round.

“Zoomcar has broken many conventions,” stated Shailendra Singh, Managing Director of Sequoia India.  “David and Greg are incredibly driven and determined entrepreneurs who moved to India from the USA to usher in a new era of self-drive. They have built technology to make an incredibly user-friendly experience, with all bookings happening through the web or mobile app. With those characteristics, they are seeing incredible demand and have had to turn away customers 89 weekends in a row.  We think they have a shot at changing the rules on car ownership in India. We are delighted to back them and support them in their endeavor to disrupt the traditional car rental market through a hyper-local car sharing model.”

Zoomcar allows customers to drive themselves. Over 95% of the industry is chauffeur-driven, and what “self-drive” options exist are largely in the unlicensed and unregulated informal economy.

“The opportunity here is astronomical,” explains Zoomcar Co-Founder and President David Back.  “Around the world, our business model thrives in ultra-dense cities with low car ownership rates.  By 2030, India will have 68 cities with populations over 1 million, while all of Europe only has 35 such cities.”

Going forward, it plans to expand its services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Goa, among other cities.

Since its launch, Zoomcar has done over 30,000+ bookings and about 1,000 people have used the service 5 times or more.

A lot of investments have flowed into the Indian personal transportation sector, with Uber devoting considerable resources, Ola raising Series D round and TaxiForSure raising money from Accel and Bessemer.  

Zoomcar was founded by Greg Moran and David Back, it had previously raised $3M.