Zoomcar's Series "B-squared" funding round, led by Chinese VC firm Cyber Carrier CL
After raising $24 million in its Series B round in August 2016, Zoomcar, one of India’s pioneers in self-drive car rentals, attracted yet another capital infusion, which they are calling an "extension to their Series B round", from Chinese venture capital firm Cyber Carrier CL.
The company's August round was led by strategic investor Ford Smart Mobility LLC, and also saw participation from their existing investors including Sequoia Capital, Empire Angels, OurCrowd, and Nokia Growth Partners.
The exact amount of this infusion remains undisclosed. Let's examine the details on hand - the amount they raised in August is $24 million, and they are terming this investment as an "extension" to that; and Cyber Carrier, a Hong Kong-based VC fund that was congregated to make investments in India worth $45 million, has made 10 investments of various sizes already. So, it is safe to assume that the capital influx proposed by the Chinese firm in order to be able to participate in Zoomcar's Series B in keeping with its scale, would be in the range of $5-15 million.
"This capital raise will be used primarily for accelerating its innovative marketplace model, ZAP, along with furthering its technological lead," said Greg Moran, CEO and Co-founder of Zoomcar, to YourStory.
The Zoomcar Associate Program (ZAP) was launched earlier in 2016, thereby allowing individuals to purchase vehicles on behalf of Zoomcar, list them on a dynamic basis on its platform, to make money from their cars when they’re not driving the vehicles. The two entities, Zoomcar and the user, finally share in the profit on a monthly basis. The money infused by the previous round have also been deployed towards strengthening this front.
“We’re thrilled to welcome the Cyber Carrier CL team on board for this next phase of growth in the Indian self-drive space. Customer experience and IoT-enabled product innovation will remain our highest priorities as we scale ZAP across India in the months ahead and our relationship with Cyber Carrier CL will no doubt help us create a world leading marketplace experience for both our renters and associate owners.”- Greg.
In turn, Jessica Wong, Managing Partner of Cyber Carrier CL, says: "Our investment team is quite familiar with similar models in China and the US. Based on the company’s data and financial model, we believe Zoomcar will accelerate on the path of rapid growth and expansion."
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Bengaluru, self-drive car rental startup Zoomcar holds the distinction of being India’s first 100 percent self-drive car rental company, offering car sharing services. It provides users with car rental services by the hour, day, week, or month. Its services are presently spread across 14 cities in India. The platform doubled its bookings figures in the past year with a fleet of over 2,500 cars, over 75 percent occupancy, two million app downloads, and users who have traveled over 13,00,00,000 km to over 200,000 destinations in the country.
