Zoomcar’s FY18 Loss Widens Due To Higher Expenses

Bengaluru-based Zoomcar’s loss widened by 10.2% in the year ended in March 2018 as compared to FY17 due to increasing costs of doing business, the company’s financial statement showed.

According to the filings accessed via business intelligence platform Tofler, the car-rental startup’s expenses rose to $39.22 Mn (INR 268 Cr) in FY18, from $32.20 Mn ( INR 220 Cr) in FY17.  Meanwhile, the annual revenue rose to $22.47 Mn (INR 153 Cr ) from $17.17 Mn (INR 117 Cr) in the previous year.

Zoomcar was founded by David Back and Greg Moran in 2012. It is a self driving car rental startup which rents out its vehicles to its users by the hour, day, and week. The compant, which competes with taxi aggregators and ridesharing startups like Ola, Uber, Bounce, LetsRide, PoolCircle, Drivezy, Carzonrent, Wunder, and Ryde, had raised $40 Mn (INR 274 Cr)  in a Series C funding round led by Mahindra & Mahindra in February this year.

Zoomcar had initially started with owning a fleet of cars, has lately shifted its business strategy to an asset light marketplace model. The change came after the company realised that owning a fleet incurred huge costs and that maintenance cost was impacting its margins.

However recently in December, the startup temporarily shut down its cycle-sharing vertical PEDL across the country. The startup is now looking to upgrade the quality of its cycles and would return back to the space this year. At present, the startup is focusing on redesigning the cycles to produce more durable and better quality products.