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| “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor |
Zoomcar thoroughly pays testament to this saying. Founded in 2012 by David Back and Greg Moran, Zoomcar has come a long way, allowing you to easily hire a self drive car in India.
2016, year in review and milestones reached:
This year, Zoomcar closed $25 million in a Series B investment round. Ford Smart Mobility LLC, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, led the round, alongside existing investors Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), Venture Souq, Cyber Carrier and Empire Angels.
Zoomcar expanded its services in several cities, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Mysore, Pune and Vizag, while adding new cars, new vehicle pickup points and home delivery options for consumer convenience.
Well into its fourth year of operations, Zoomcar has witnessed a growing demand from across India, and has doubled bookings in the past year, with a fleet of nearly 2,500 cars, over 75 percent occupancy and two million app downloads. Over 80 percent of the company’s bookings occur on the mobile app, and its users have traveled over 120 million kms to more than 50,000 destinations across the country. In the next three to six months, Zoomcar plans to expand product lines, and will expand from the current 14 Indian cities to over 25 cities countries.
Learnings from 2016:
Greg Moran, CEO and Co-Founder, Zoomcar, told YourStory, “This time round, we had a real business that was really scaling; we really understand the customers’ needs, We’re still learning, but we have our business model and direction locked down. When you’ve got to scale up a company, you’ve got idea risk, market risk and global economic risk, and then you’ve got execution risks. Car ownership can be a major drain given the initial cost of the vehicle, leasing, financing, insurance, parking, fuel, taxes, and other expenses. So, Zoomcar built ZAP to enable people to share their cars. Zoomcar is building platforms that connect people, enabling them to drive economic value from assets they own and connecting them with others that are interested in accessing, renting, or benefitting from those assets. With ZAP, a customer who buys a new car can enjoy driving it, and while they aren’t using it, can earn money from it. The car can be shared with verified Zoomcar customers: community members, office colleagues, friends and perhaps the next door neighbor who waters your plants while you are on vacation!”
He further added, “A speeding alert system enabled via an in-car ‘smart device’ helps the company monitor the speed of its vehicles in real-time and penalise over-speeding customers to promote safer driving behaviour. With the recent advent of novel Bluetooth-based hardware tied to the OBD (on board diagnostics) port, Zoomcar monitors the driver performance by assessing braking, steering, fuel efficiency, and much more. This intelligence is then pushed back to the driver in real-time to ensure the individual drives safer for the rest of his trip. Thus, penalties can be imposed on customers exhibiting certain types of rash behaviour, like inappropriate clutch riding or harsh acceleration. This system helps Zoomcar leverage objective criteria to rate drivers, thereby improving driver/passenger safety and the overall health of the vehicle. Despite these proactive technology and operations measures taken by many of these new age self-drive companies, the reality is that both the state and central governments lag greatly in doing their respective parts. This is where the next great leap forward within road safety will hopefully come from in the months and years ahead.”
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