Money4Drive: A startup enabling affordable advertisement using vehicles as a medium.

Advertising on vehicles, including autos, cars, e-rickshaws, buses and all other forms of public transport, does not seem like a new concept, and indeed, it isn’t. But few have been able to achieve the scale seen by Indore-based Money4Drive.

Co-founder Tilkesh Bhatia says, "Advertising via television, newspapers and hoardings is, at times, not in everybody's reach. I wanted to create something that would be a win-win situation for all involved in the process.”

Through Money4Drive, the auto driver gets additional income without any extra effort, while the advertiser establishes his product's presence across the area covered by the movable vehicle. This results in brand omnipresence in a cost effective manner.

Sourabh Khandelwal founded Money4Drive in November 2011 and was later joined by Tilkesh Bhatia in January 2015.

How did they go about addressing the opportunity?

Sourabh says, "Our first client for auto advertisement was the American Institute of Learning, which was not in such a good shape at the time. We did a campaign on just 50 autos, and the institute is now a stable entity, having recovered from its losses. A client later gave us an order for a campaign on 100,000 autos across India, covering 300 cities and eight states. Afterwards, we promoted several corporates, and also did movie promotions across India as well, carrying banners for movies like Dabaang 2, Bajrangi Bhaijaan , Sultan, Raees and many more. Today, we are present in 16 states and 400 cities across India, with a team of IITians, engineers and MBAs."

USP of the product

They use android applications to give live tracking of campaigns to their clients. They have also successfully implemented a pilot with Ola for auto advertisement in Indore, Jaipur and Pune for the movie Sultan.

Money4Drive claims to be the only vehicle branding agency working in as many as 16 states in India. The company has the data of more than 200,000 registered auto drivers across the country. This helps them trigger the campaign as well as to maintain the retention of banners and hoods on autos.

Revenue growth and projections

In 2014-2015, the venture’s revenue was Rs 70 lakh. In the following year, they saw their revenues grow more than threefold, to around Rs 2.5 crore. They are projecting a turnover of Rs 50 crore or more by 2020 while maintaining a profitability of around 20 percent.

Market size

The vehicle advertising industry's market size is expected to be around Rs 4,000 crore. This accounts for around 8 percent of the entire Indian advertising industry, which was estimated to be worth Rs 51,365 crore in 2016.

Monetisation strategy

Their business model will lead to the registration of 10 percent of the available six million auto drivers in India, at which point advertising revenues will be significant. Other avenues of monetisation will be via launching taxi top LED advertisements, e-rickshaw LED advertisements and train vinyl wrap advertisements.

The team

The Money4Drive team consists of 40 people. Tilkesh shared, "Hiring is solely based on people willing to work in harsh conditions and who would be available to handle challenges 24/7."