ZoomCar, the self-drive car rental service working on similar lines as the U.S.-based Zipcar, has now secured some fresh capital, speculated to be in the vicinity of $5 Million, from its existing investors. The funding is also an after-effect sort of phenomena as one of the co-founders, David Back recently exited from the company.
However, Back isn’t completely exiting the company after all. Inside sources have told Economic Times, that Back will continue to hold on to his board position of the US entity of the Bengaluru-based company, in which sources say he owns 24%.
ZoomCar has had a pretty star-studded line-up of investors till date. While its previous $8 Million round was led by Sequoia Capital, the round also saw participation from former US treasury secretary Larry Summers, and prominent British businesswoman Lady Barbara Judge among others.
Back, who co-founded the venture along with college-mate Moran, dropped out of Harvard to start Zoomcar. He had previously detailed out the concept in a paper he previously published at Harvard.
India has seen a surge in self-driven car rental segment, as number of tourists flocking the country continues to rise. Moreover, domestic tourists travelling to hill stations and other scenic places have now started preferring a self-driven rented car, rather than other means of transport. Similar startups, on the lines of ZoomCar also include Carzonrent and Formula Group’s self-driven car rental launch which it announced earlier this month.
Zoomcar’s progress has been pretty robust. The startup, which had a fleet of merely 42 cars in 4 Bengaluru locations in 2013, has now grown to a massive 1100 cars with operations active in Bengaluru and Pune, and with more recent additions being Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad.
Prospects for companies such as ZoomCar and Carzonrent have increased dramatically in the past couple of years. For example, in 2013 alone, Forbes pegged valuation of India’s rental car market to a stagering $3 Billion. That number has grown exponentially over the years, thus prompting many other established firms to go for self-driven car rental market. The most recent example of such firms being, mobility provider Formula Group.
