Domestic utility vehicle major Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd has picked up a 16 percent equity stake at Rs 176 crore in car rental firm Zoomcar India Private Limited and in Zoomcar Inc, its US incorporated holding parent company, as part of its thrust in shared mobility business.
Mahindra has been keen to invest in shared mobility space as a part of its strategy to promote and participate in sustainable mobility solutions, including multi-modal urban mobility. This is with the company’s overall broader objective of enabling improved livelihoods and lifestyles of people and adapt its own business to the changing needs of consumers. To that end, Mahindra has been promoting electric vehicles along with the promotion of shared mobility.
For the year FY17, Zoomcar posted revenues of Rs 121 crore, up from Rs 90 crore in the year before. The investment is part of its $40 million (Rs 255 crore) ‘Series C’ fund-raising round. The online company is expanding into online car trading and into “car subscriptions” under its ZAP mobile app brand.
“At Mahindra, we are playing a pioneering role in the shared mobility business and are looking forward to an impetus in it through this investment in Zoomcar,” said Dr Pawan Goenka, Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. “We are confident that this partnership with Zoomcar will help further our vision to transform mobility in the country, thereby creating a more connected ecosystem.”
Both companies are not strangers to each other. Last year, Mahindra and Zoomcar had announced a partnership to introduce electric vehicles into the shared mobility space. Zoomcar recently launched Mahindra e20Plus electric vehicles across Mysore, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Going forward, it expects to add another 500+ Mahindra EVs across more than 20 cities pan-India in the first half of 2018.
“We are incredibly excited to welcome the Mahindra team on board for this next phase of growth, within the Indian self-drive mobility space,” said Greg Moran, Co-Founder & CEO, Zoomcar. “Our collaboration with Mahindra dates back to 2013 when we first kicked off in Bangalore. Most importantly, Mahindra shares Zoomcar’s vision for multi-modal urban mobility and we look forward to leveraging their diverse platform to help accelerate the transformation to a shared, electric mobility future for India.”
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