Chauffeur-on-demand service startup DriveU on 27 March raised Rs 20 crore, a media report said. The round of funding was led by former Google Inc. executive Amit Singhal, with participation from Unitus Seed Fund, an existing investor of the startup.
About the startup
DriveU, operated by Bengaluru-based Humble Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd gives customers the opportunity to summon a driver for intra-city as well as outstation travel over an app, its website and through a call centre number.
The platform also provides for facilities to check the driver’s arrival time and make electronic payments.
The company said it will use the capital to double down on the cities it currently operates in and invest in the platform.
“DriveU, having grown at 16% month-over-month since inception, has recently witnessed accelerated growth. The funds will allow us to further expand our reach and offerings to our customers,”
said chief executive and co-founder Rahm Shastry.
Funding and Investment
The latest funding is the second one after Unitus Seed Fund put $1 million in the start-up in February 2016., a year after DriveU was founded.
Singhal, who joins as the lead in the latest round, was the ex-senior vice president at Google. He currently manages Singhal Foundation that supports projects in the domain of child education in India. He is also on the board of directors at fintech firm Paytm, among other companies.
“DriveU has demonstrated a deep commitment to enabling good wages for numerous underprivileged individuals. Their business is growing at a strong pace while maintaining positive unit economics, which is key to building a successful company,”
Singhal said in a statement.
After the first round of seed funding 2016, DriveU scaled on the back of inorganic expansion to cover multiple cities. The startup acquired rivals CallAtHome in May 2016, Driverkart in May 2017, and Zuver in July 2017 to gain access to their respective driver networks in the National Capital Region, Mumbai, and Chennai.
DriveU has over 6,000 drivers on its platform offering their service in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Pune, and Hyderabad. The chauffeurs are offered to both individual customers and businesses at rates starting at Rs 99 per hour.
Players in related markets
Recently, self-drive car rental Zoomcar’s CEO Greg Moran has expressed his interest in Rajasthan for his company. The company has a presence in over 30 cities across the country.
Moran was in India to participate in the Rajasthan Digifest 2018. He has pointed out that the thriving tourism in Rajasthan is the reason the company is interested in business in that state. Moran is hopeful that this would yield very good results.
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