Zoomcar to Scale up Marketplace Model ZAP With $24-Million Investment Led by Ford

Car-rental startup Zoomcar added another investor to its kitty on Thursday, closing in on a $24 million dollar investment led by Ford Smart Mobility, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Ford Smart Mobility is the fourth investor in Zoomcar. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners and Empire Angels also participated in this round of funding.

With this investment, Zoomcar is looking at expanding its fleet size and scaling up its Zoomcar Associate Program. ZAP was launched in April this year and allows private vehicle owners to lease their cars out to Zoomcar and share profits on a monthly basis. Prior to that, the startup owned the entire fleet of cars available on its platform.

“With this investment, we are focusing a lot more on our products and technology. We are aggressively expanding and expect that our ZAP model will account for 75 percent of our fleet size. We are looking to reach a fleet size of about 25,000 vehicles across 25 cities by 2018,” Greg Moran, the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zoomcar told BloombergQuint in a telephonic interview.

Zoomcar currently has a fleet size of 2,000 cars, and is operational in seven cities – Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Chandigarh.

Ford was Zoomcar’s first original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partner when it started in 2013 and continues to be the largest supplier of cars for the self-drive car rental startup. BloombergQuint is still awaiting a comment from Ford Motors.