Car and bike rental platform Drivezy on Wednesday said it has raised $20 million in a Series B round led by existing investor Das Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm founded by serial entrepreneur Shinji Kimura. Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd and Axan Partners, among others, also participated in the round, said Drivezy co-founder Abhishek Mahajan. With this, it has so far raised about $31 million from external sources.
The money will be used to improve the startup’s technology infrastructure, besides strengthening its marketing initiatives across India. The company, which also raised an additional $100 million through an asset financing deal, plans to deploy about 50,000 vehicles over the next three years.
The Bengaluru-based peer-to-peer car and bike rental platform offers vehicles on an hourly, daily and monthly basis, for ₹100-2,500 per day, depending on the vehicle.
Drivezy was founded in 2015 by Mahajan, Amit Sahu, Ashwarya Singh, Hemant Kumar Sah and Vasant Verma. The platform allows vehicle owners to offer their cars and bikes on rent to registered customers.
“The sharing economy in India is thriving and has picked up real pace in the past five years, especially within the mobility sector. With less than 8% of Indian citizens owning a car, the rapidly growing car and bike sharing industry could provide convenient and sustainable mobility to millions of urban Indian residents. This fresh investment will allow us to cement our foothold as the market leader in the growing vehicle sharing market in Indian,” Drivezy CEO Ashwarya Singh said in a statement.
The platform is operational across eight cities, including Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad, catering to 37,000-40,000 customers a month. Out of the total customer base, 60% people are two-wheeler users, and the company expects that number to reach 70% in the next two years, said Mahajan.
Investors are pouring funds into scooter rental startups, including Vogo (backed by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and Hero MotoCorp Ltd), Rapido and Bounce, Mint reported in this month. Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, is also planning to invest about $100 million in electric scooter startup Ather Energy.
[“source=cnbc”]