Self-Drive Car Rental Firm Zoomcar Plans To Go Global By 2017-End
Bengaluru based Zoomcar to venture into African and South Asian countries
Bengaluru-based Zoomcar India Pvt Ltd. which offers self-drive rental services under the brand name Zoomcar, is looking to foray into African and South Asian countries by the end of 2017, Greg Moran, co-founder of Zoomcar told BloombergQuint.
India is certainly the grand-daddy of the market penetration possibilities. But we are inching closer to finishing our India growth story and next step is to go international by 2017-end. There is a lot of opportunities in geographies like Nigeria, Philippines and Indonesia.Greg Moran, Co-founder, Zoomcar
The startup, which was founded in 2013 by Greg Moran and David Back, allows users to rent vehicles for as little as an hour at a time. It started with just seven Ford Figos and Mahindra cars in Bangalore, and now has a fleet of 2,300 cars across 12 Indian cities. It plans to enter another 13 cities over the next six months and expand the fleet size to 2,500 by the end of 2018, Moran said.
“As far as immediate expansion is concerned, we will add three more cities, namely Indore, Jaipur and Coimbatore, by December-end,” Moran added.
Breaking Even
Adding that the company had already broken-even at a certain city levels, the CEO said that the overall Indian operations is expected to break even by March 2017 but refused to divulge profit or revenue figures for the firm.
Profitability is not a concern for us, we have been focusing on growth, strengthening technology and building a customer base.Greg Moran, Co-founder, Zoomcar
Zoomcar is three times the size of the second biggest self-drive rental player in India, Moran said, renting out 1,500 cars daily. When asked about his thoughts on becoming a unicorn, Moran was quick to respond. “It is surely going to take less than five years,” he said.
The four-year-old startup raised $24 million in its latest round of funding in August led by Ford Smart Mobility, a subsidiary of U.S. car major Ford, taking the total amount it has raised since its inception to $46 million. Moran, however declined to disclose Zoomcar’s valuation or the stake held by each investor. Existing investors include Nokia Growth Partners, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital, among others.
AirBnb of Cars?
In April this year, Zoomcar introduced its Zoomcar Associate Programme (ZAP) which allows individuals to put their cars up for rent to the startup when not in use. Only those buying new cars can register for the programme.
So far, it has received over 7,000 registrations and Moran said ZAP will account for 75 percent of the fleet size by 2017.
“It’s all about having an asset that is sitting idle. So, the point is while your vehicles is not in use, why not rent it out. It will reduce the EMI (equated monthly installment) by 75 percent. You can get a Swift at an EMI of a bike,” Moran explained.
The Road Ahead
The self-drive rental space in India is starting to pick up pace with at least four players – Myles (owned by Carzonrent), Revv, Voler, JustRide – making an entry over the last two years. However, angel investor Ajeet Khurana said India is still a fledgling market.
Whether this will become a big market, culturally, is still a concern. Also in India there is no big difference between chauffeur-driven and self-driven cars, from a price point of view, as is the case in the U.S. or some other countries. Despite limitations, these startups have done a good job so far.Ajeet Khurana , Angel Investor
