Mahindra Led $40 Mn Series C Funding Round In Zoomcar

Bengaluru-based Zoomcar has closed $40Mn in a Series C funding round led by Mahindra & Mahindra. The round also saw participation from the other existing investors of the self-drive mobility platform.

Zoomcar’s capital raise will be used primarily for accelerating its marketplace supply growth, improving its lead within applied IoT technologies, and expanding into additional mobility categories across India.

Prior to the latest funding round, the self-drive mobility platform raised $60.2 Mn in multiple rounds from investors such as China-based Cyber Carrier CL, Ford Smart Mobility LLC, a unit of Ford Motor Co, Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners and Empire Angels among others.

Zoomcar was founded in 2012 by Greg Moran and David Back. 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.  Most recently, the company introduced ZAP Subscribe, India’s first monthly subscription-based program for cars.

In October 2017, Zoomcar launched PEDL, India’s first dockless cycle sharing service.  The service 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.

Zoomcar expects this fresh funding to help the Company 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.

“Our collaboration with Mahindra dates back to 2013 when we first kicked off in Bengaluru.  Most importantly, Mahindra shares Zoomcar’s vision for multi-modal urban mobility and we look forward to leveraging their diverse platform to help accelerate the transformation to a shared, electric mobility future for India,” added Greg.

Mahindra and Mahindra forged a partnership with Zoomcar in November 2017. With respect to the electric collaboration, Zoomcar recently launched E2O plus vehicles across Mysore, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.

In coming months, Zoomcar expects to add another 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.

Zoomcar seeks to create a clearer differentiation from driver-based mobility platforms such as Ola or Uber. The Series C funding round from Mahindra will allow Zoomcar to double down on its strong community building efforts to ensure it maintains its high customer retention levels.