Zoomcar

Last updated

Zoomcar
Company type Private
Industry Car rental
FoundedFebruary 2013;11 years ago (2013-02)
Founders
  • Greg Moran
  • David Back
Headquarters Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Areas served
 India, South East Asia, Middle East and North Africa [1]
Services Carsharing
Website www.zoomcar.com

Zoomcar is an Indian carsharing platform, headquartered in Bangalore. Founded in 2013 by David Back and Greg Moran, [2] it currently operates in more than 34 cities. [3]

Contents

In December 2023, it was announced that it had merged with Innovative International Acquisition Corporation (IOAC) and formed a new entity, Zoomcar Holdings Inc. [4]

History

American duo [5] David Back & Greg Moran, met while studying at the University of Pennsylvania, [6] where both graduated in 2007. After graduating, Back studied at Harvard Law School [7] and Moran worked on energy financing projects. [8] The pair also attended business school; Moran at the University of Southern California and Back at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University.

Back and Moran both dropped out of business school to move to India and pursue a venture in car rentals. [9] In May 2015, Back resigned from the self-drive car rental company, and decided to move back to the US citing personal reasons. [10]

Zoom officially launched operations in Bangalore in February 2013 using JustShareIt platform. [11] Zoom started with $215,000 in capital and a fleet of seven cars. [12]

Investors and valuation

Zoom initially raised capital from individual investors including Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, [13] Chair of the UK Institute of Directors Lady Barbara Judge, [14] Vice-Dean of International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School William P. Alford, [15] Wharton Statistics Chair Edward George, [16] and the former Director of the Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Shai Vyakarnam. [17] Back met Summers at Harvard University, where Back was a teaching assistant to Summers. [18]

Zoomcar's institutional investors include: Mahindra&Mahindra, [19] Ford Motor Company, [20] Sequoia Capital, [21] Nokia Growth Partners, [22] FundersClub, [23] Basset Investment Group, [24] Athene Capital,[ citation needed ] Empire Angels, VentureSouq,{https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/314039} OurCrowd, [25] Globevestor., [26] and Cyber Carrier CL. [27] Zoomcar has also raised money from former Infosys CFO T.V. Mohandas Pai and his business partner Abhay Jain. [28]

At Ford's investor day presentation in September 2016, CEO Mark Fields described difficulties with Ford's prior strategy in India, but commented "Our new mobility business could be a factor that plays in there. That's why you saw us about a month ago take an equity position in Zoomcar, which is the largest car sharing service in India." [29]

Zoomcar has raised a total funding of Rs. 673 Cr. [30] and it has been valued at Rs. 1778 Cr. [30] in its latest round of funding.

Competition

Zoomcar faces competition from Almisbah cars Mangalore, Revv Cars, Drivezy, MylesCars (backed by Carzonrent), Ola Drive by (Ola Cabs) and other similar car rental companies.

Partnerships

Zoom partnered with the auto manufacturers like Ford & Mahindra which allowed them to become the first car rental company in India to offer an electric vehicle (the Mahindra REVA E2O by Mahindra) and the Ford EcoSport "urban SUV by Ford" in 2013. [31] Zoom also works with locally established real estate developers, universities, hotels, and corporate IT parks to secure parking for its vehicles and offer pick-up points to its members. [32]

In November 2013, Zoom, Uber, and the Ashoka Foundation launched a month-long campaign in Bangalore called RideSmartBLR to encourage car-rental and discourage drunk driving for its health, economical and environmental benefits. [33]

Zoom was a member of Microsoft's Accelerator Plus program in Bangalore in Spring 2014. [34] This program is designed to provide more tailored assistance to later-stage start-ups as they scale their business and raise capital. [35]

Opposition

In July 2015, Zoomcar issued caution information to its customers following opposition from the Ladakh taxi union. Following an incident in which a convoy of 15 cars rented from the company was reportedly attacked by members of the union with stones and iron rods, Zoomcar issued a cautionary mail to customers traveling to Khardung La and Nubra valley. [36] The following week Zoom issued an update stating that the situation had aggravated and the company urged extreme caution to customers traveling to the region. [37] The taxi unions of Gulmarg and Ladakh continue to resist entry of non-local commercial cars in the region. [38]

Controversies

Banning of Advertisement

In December 2015, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) banned 54 controversial Indian ads which included a video advertisement by Zoomcar. [39] The ad was found to be in violation of India's Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 by the council, following which the advertisement was pulled off by the company.

Data breach

In July 2018, Zoomcar suffered a data breach exposing more the data of more than 3.5 million users including names, email and IP addresses, phone numbers and passwords. [40]

Breaches of refund policy

In the year 2020, Zoomcar breached its refund policy of providing refunds within 7–14 days, extended it to 30 days but still haven't refunded their customers, some of whom have been waiting for more than 8 months as of 3 November 2020. [41] A lot of their customers took to different social media websites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to report this issue. Their CEO, Greg Moran, when questioned about this stated that he isn't aware of any breach of policy from their side. [42] Zoomcar has been replying to their customers' tweets saying that the refund will be processed soon without giving any confirmation on date and time.

See also

Related Research Articles

Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited is an Indian banking and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai. It offers banking products and financial services for corporate and retail customers in the areas of personal finance, investment banking, life insurance, and wealth management. It is India's third largest private sector bank by market capitalisation after HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. As of 31 March 2023, the bank has a national footprint of 1,780 branches and 2,964 ATMs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economy of Bangalore</span>

Bangalore or Bengaluru, the capital city of South Indian state of Karnataka, India is the largest industrial and commercial center of South India and is the third largest industrial and commercial center of the country. The economy of Bengaluru contributes over 43.65% to the economy of the State of Karnataka, accounting for 98% of the Software Exports of the State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahindra & Mahindra</span> Indian automobile manufacturer

Mahindra & Mahindra Limited (M&M) is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai. It was established in 1945 as Mahindra & Mohammed and later renamed Mahindra & Mahindra. Part of the Mahindra Group, M&M is one of the largest vehicle manufacturers by production in India. Its unit, Mahindra Tractors, is the largest manufacturer of tractors in the world by volume. It was ranked 17th on a list of top companies in India by Fortune India 500 in 2018. Its major competitors in the Indian market include Maruti Suzuki India and Tata Motors. Dr. Anish Shah is the current CEO and Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra.

Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bangalore, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, home essentials, groceries, and lifestyle products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. V. Mohandas Pai</span> Indian business executive

T. V. Mohandas Pai is an Indian businessman and Philanthropist. He is current Chairperson of Manipal Global Education. He was a former board member at Infosys, and Head – Administration, Education, and Research, Financial, and Human Resources at the Infosys Leadership Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Software industry in Chennai</span> Third largest software exporter in India

Chennai is the third largest software exporter in India, next only to Bangalore and Hyderabad. India's largest IT park is housed at Chennai. Software exports from Tamil Nadu during 2017–2018 rose 8.8% per cent to touch 1,11,179 crore, involving a workforce of 780,000, and the city is the hub for deep tech startup companies. Many software and software services companies have development centres in Chennai, which contributed 14 percent of India's total software exports of ₹ 14,42,140 lakh during 2006–07, making it the third largest Indian city software exporter following Bangalore, Hyderabad and the city is the home for 7 top rated IT companies out of 15 in India. The Tidel Park in Chennai was billed as Asia's largest IT park when it was built. Major software companies have their offices set up here, with some of them making Chennai their largest base. Chennai is the largest hub for e-publishing, as there are 67 e-publishing units registered with the STPI and many Rs.8300-Cr data centers, digital hubs are in the process of development. A major reason for the growth of the Software industry are the top engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, of which Chennai is a major contributor, have been a major recruiting hub for the IT firms. According to estimates, these engineering colleges and universities consistently generate about 50 per cent of the human resource requirements for the IT and ITES industry was being sourced from the state, particularly from Chennai. The total employment in the Tamil Nadu’s technology sector crossed the one million mark in the quarter ended June 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AngelList</span> Website connecting startups, angel investors, and job-seekers

AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unitus Seed Fund</span>

Unitus Seed Fund (now Unitus Ventures) is a venture fund based in Bangalore and Seattle that supports early-stage tech startups with India scale and global potential. It funds early-stage Indian technology startups, primarily in the healthcare, education and financial sectors. As an impact investment fund, its focus is on startups that serve low and middle-income consumers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carzonrent</span> Car Rental Company in India

Carzonrent India Private Limited (CIPL), better known as Carzonrent is an Indian car-rental company. The company is headquartered in New Delhi, India. Carzonrent was founded by Rajiv Kumar Vij in 2000. In 2001, Carzonrent won the exclusive franchisee rights for the American car rental firm Hertz International in India.

The Alchemist Accelerator is a venture-backed accelerator focused on the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises. Alchemist's backers include Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, Siemens, GE, and Salesforce, among others. The accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures per year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ola Cabs</span> Indian multinational ridesharing company

Ola Cabs is an Indian multinational ridesharing company, headquartered in Bangalore. It also operates in other business verticals including financial services and cloud kitchens.

Meru Cabs is an Indian taxi-hailing company. Founded by Neeraj Gupta in 2006, the company is headquartered in Mumbai. Since 2019, the company has been owned by Mahindra Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolt (company)</span> Peer-to-peer ridesharing, food delivery

Bolt is an Estonian mobility company that offers ride-hailing, micromobility rental, food and grocery delivery, and carsharing services. The company is headquartered in Tallinn and operates in over 500 cities in more than 45 countries in Europe, Africa, Western Asia and Latin America. The company has more than 150 million customers and more than 3 million driver and courier partners. The company has plans for an initial public offering in 2025.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">M12 (venture capital)</span> American corporate venture capital subsidiary of Microsoft

M12, formerly Microsoft Ventures, is a corporate venture capital subsidiary of Microsoft. Founded in March 2016, its mission is to be an active, strategic partner during a startup's growth, typically investing between Series A and D. The fund is managed by Michelle Gonzalez, formerly of Google.

PT Gojek Indonesia is an Indonesian on-demand multi-service platform and digital payment technology group based in Jakarta. Gojek was first established in Indonesia in 2009 as a call center to connect consumers to courier delivery and two-wheeled ride-hailing services. Gojek launched its application in 2015 with only four services: GoRide, GoSend, GoShop, and GoFood. Valued at US$10 billion today, Gojek has transformed into a super app, providing more than 20 services.

PT Trinusa Travelindo, operating as Traveloka is an Indonesian technology company focused on travel and ticketing. Operating a services website of the same name and based out of Jakarta, Indonesia, Traveloka is active in six countries, and in 2022 remained the largest online travel app in Southeast Asia. Founded in 2012 as a travel search engine, it now also offers services such as attraction tickets, activities, transportation rentals, and restaurant vouchers. It also provides financial services such as credit and insurance. Classified as a unicorn company and regarded as functionally similar to Expedia, in 2022 it was valued approximately at US$3 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zify</span>

Zify is a vehicle for hire and carpool service operating in Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Paris, and Berlin.

Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery platform. Founded in 2014, Swiggy is headquartered in Bangalore and operates in more than 500 Indian cities as of September 2021. Besides food delivery, the platform also provides on-demand grocery deliveries under the name Instamart, and a same-day package delivery service called Swiggy Genie.

Revv Cars is an Indian self-drive mobility start up funded by Hyundai and others. The company was founded by Anupam Agarwal and Karan Jain in July 2015 and started its operation in Delhi-NCR. Through Revv, customers can rent a car up to a period of 4 years. Apart from renting for specific number of hours or days, the company also let customers rent for one-way journeys. The company operates with a standard hub model - where there is a hub of cars from where the vehicles are dropped to the customers. The company staff is able to come back to the hub with the help of a foldable electric scooter which is stored in the boot of the car. The company had stopped its services during the initial lockdown for few months and resumed later. Apart from acquiring vehicles directly, the company also works on a crowdsourcing model in which individual would buy a car on a 10% down payment and register it with Revv. Revv pays a fee to the individual that is equal to the monthly installment to pay the loan which is usually for 4 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hype Luxury Mobility</span> Indian luxury car rental company

Hype Luxury Mobility is a luxury car rental company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Founded in 2017, it provides luxury cars, yachts and private jets for rent in India, the UAE, and the UK.

References

  1. ↑ "Zoomcar's Loss More Than Halves To INR 74 Cr In FY22, Operating Revenue Up 1.2X YoY". Inc42. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  2. ↑ "14 startups to look forward to in 2014". The Economic Times. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  3. ↑ "Zoomcar resumes operations in 35 cities after easing of lockdown restrictions". The Economic Times. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
  4. ↑ "Zoomcar merges with Innovative International Acquisition Corporation". The Economic Times. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  5. ↑ "Business News, India Stock Market, Personal Finance, IPO, Financial News Headlines - The Financial Express". Financialexpress.com. Archived from the original on 13 April 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  6. ↑ "High-tech entrepreneurs flock to India". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  7. ↑ "President's challenge finalists selected". The Crimson.
  8. ↑ Radhika Koppanur. "Zoom Creates Self Drive Car Market Segment in India". vyapaari.in. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  9. ↑ Mark Bergen (8 August 2013). "Indian Drivers Attract Larry Summers". Wall Street Journal India. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  10. ↑ Ambre, Ashna (29 May 2015). "Zoomcar co-founder David Back resigns". www.livemint.com/. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  11. ↑ Pranbihanga Borpuzari (23 March 2013). "Zoom Inc. lets its customers enjoy the benefits of using a car without having to own it". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  12. ↑ "Attacking a $3 billion rent a car market". forbes.com. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  13. ↑ "Larry Summers fuels Bangalore car hire startup". Times of India . Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  14. ↑ "Self-drive car rental startup Zoom raises $215K in angel funding; targets $3B rent-a-car market". Techcircle.vccircle.com. 1 April 2013. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  15. ↑ "Microsoft Accelerator - Global Startup Stories: ZoomCar". Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  16. ↑ "Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem". Techinasia.com. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  17. ↑ Punit, Itika Sharma. "How two Americans zoomed into India's car rental market — Quartz". qz.com. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  18. ↑ Mark Bergen (8 August 2013). "Indian Drivers Attract Larry Summers". Wall Street Journal India.
  19. ↑ "India's Zoomcar raises $40M led by automotive giant Mahindra & Mahindra". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
  20. ↑ "Ford leads $24M investment in India-based vehicle rental company Zoomcar – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  21. ↑ "Self-drive car sharing company Zoomcar raises $8 million venture funding led by Sequoia Capital - timesofindia-economictimes". Archived from the original on 16 September 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  22. ↑ "News". Nokiagrowrthpartners.com. 26 August 2017. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  23. ↑ "FundersClub". fundersclub.com. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  24. ↑ "Empire Angels leads round for Indian car rental startup Zoomcar - PE Hub". Pehub.com. 3 October 2013. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  25. ↑ "OurCrowd > Zoomcar". Archived from the original on 9 June 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  26. ↑ "We will invest in 10-12 startups this year: Ankur Shrivastava of crowdfunding site Globevestor". Techcircle.vccircle.com. 16 January 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  27. ↑ Chakraborty, Sayan (20 December 2016). "Zoomcar raises funds from Chinese VC firm Cyber Carrier". Livemint.com. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  28. ↑ "Delhi Car Rental Services, Hire Taxi, Maruti Suzuki Dzire in Delhi & NCR". Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  29. ↑ Rosevear, John. "Why Ford's CEO Is Having Second Thoughts About India". Fool.com. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  30. 1 2 allseriesfunding (19 December 2019). "Zoomcar - Funding & Valuation". All Series Funding. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  31. ↑ "Zoom Chooses Ford to Pioneer Innovative Car Rental Service in India". @Fordonline. 24 April 2013. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  32. ↑ "Featured Member : Greg Moran". TIE Bangalore Chapter.
  33. ↑ Shilpa Phadnis (21 November 2013). "ZoomCar, Uber launch smart riding campaign in Bangalore". The Times Of India. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  34. ↑ "Microsoft Accelerator Launches New Program For Late Stage Startups In India".
  35. ↑ Economictimes.com (11 February 2014). "16 tech startups selected for Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Program's latest batch". The Economic Times. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  36. ↑ "Updated: Zoomcar & Myles advise caution after Ladakh taxi union revolts against self-drive rental cars". MediaNama. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  37. ↑ ""The situation has aggravated"; Zoomcar advises extreme caution as taxi unions damage cars in Ladakh". MediaNama. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  38. ↑ "Self drive rental service cos offer a string of benefits". www.businesstoday.in. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  39. ↑ "ASCI bans 54 ads, including HUL, Godrej, Marico, Airtel 4G, Flipkart, Bennett Coleman & Co, HT Media, Shoppers Stop, HDFC Bank, Max Bupa, in September - Moneylife". www.moneylife.in. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
  40. ↑ Kar, Sanghamitra (23 May 2020). "Data of 3.5 million Zoomcar customers up for sale". The Economic Times. ISSN   0013-0389 . Retrieved 27 June 2023.
  41. ↑ Suresh, Haripriya (11 July 2020). "Zoomcar flooded with complaints over pending refunds due to lockdown" . Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  42. ↑ Kritti (7 July 2020). "Customer Money Stuck In Refunds, But Zoomcar CEO 'Unaware'". Inc24. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.