Audacia Capital, licenced under the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), recently announced in a statement that it has acquired 25% stake in ekar. ekar is a car sharing startup based in Dubai and will use the capital to boost its cooperation with Dubai Roads and Transport Authority, Etihad Airways and Emirates Airlines while also expanding the service network and inventory size.

“Audacia Capital has always been supportive of UAE founded companies. The ekar business model is offering consumers a unique service that isn’t available in the market. ekar is also working in alignment with the UAE Government’s vision to promote sustainability and economic growth and car sharing will serve to be very beneficial for this purpose in the long run. We are pleased to have started this partnership and we are confident that ekar will in no time become the leading car-sharing scheme operator in the GCC,” said Emad Mansour, CEO, Audacia Capital.

The investment bank hasn’t revealed the size of deal. It is being reported that ekar plans to raise a series B round within the next 18 months. The startup officially launched in January 2017.

“With this investment, ekar has the financial capacity to both expand its current operations with the Roads & Transportation Authority (RTA), Emirates Airlines, and Etihad Airways as well as to add new carshare programmes for city and private fleets. We aim to have over 1,000 ekars over the next 3 years across the GCC including Saudi Arabia,” said Vilhelm Hedberg, CEO ekar.

“The ekar RTA Dubai Car fleet of 100 ekars are available for booking from convenient metro locations and city locations, easily discoverable via our ekar App. User counts continue to grow, and we are already seeing trends in consumer behaviour, with many members utilising ekars multiple times daily. Further, our existing business with Etihad Airways and Emirates Airlines continues to grow, and we have begun expanding our focus to international airports, a clear next step for ekar. The ekar Book Now, Book Later option is ideal for tourists looking to plan ahead for their trips, and is also gaining increasing popularity with public and private companies looking to optimise its own car fleet. Typically, a carshare programme can bring about a 35 per cent decrease in company fleet size, which in turn reduces company costs and depletes overall carbon emissions,” he added.

Boston Consulting predicts that by the year 2021, 35 million users all over the globe will be booking rental cars for over 1.5 billion minutes per month. The annual revenue from rental services is expected to reach USD 4.7 billion.

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Transportation technology provider Sun Telematics has announced raising another round of pre series-A funding from angel investors. The deal size hasn’t been disclosed. The company previously raised half a million dollars in June 2016. It has recently launched a new tech platform called Drive for corporates, medium and small transport vendors to manage all types of people transport operations such as employee transportation, outstation car rental, city taxi operations etc., using a single platform. It helps the transport vendors in end to end automation, cross utilisation of supply, passenger safety and managed multiple demand channels.

With the freshly raised capital, the company plans to push deeper into Tier 2 cities. They share that over 30+ corporates and 50+ transport vendors are using Drive platform with over 15K vehicles executing over 50K trips everyday. They claim a current user base of a million and expect to reach ten times of that by the end of this year.

The company’s CEO Mr. Antony Sheen shared, “We are happy to enable small transport vendors to adopt technology and enable them to compete with big organized players. Bottom up competition from small operators will result in efficiency and transparency in people transport industry.”

Competition from big taxi aggregator companies and recent national policy guidelines on urban mobility by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, are driving unorganized players to implement technology platform like ‘Drive’. The market size is estimated to be USD 9 billion, fuelled by the growth of smartphone and internet adoption.

“We are making technology accessible to the smallest transport vendors and vehicle owners operating in the remotest corner of India,” said Sasi Armugham, Sun Telematics Co-founder and CTO.

You can find more details about Sun Telematics here.

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Sharing, or rather the access economy is becoming a part of our everyday lives even without us noticing. Taking UberPOOL to work, booking a homestay on Stayzilla, renting a mountain bike at a hill station, all of these have become common practice. Our upcoming report indicates that over the past five years, the sharing space has seen the maximum investments in APAC, higher than any other industry segment. As you would expect, most of this capital has gone towards transportation solutions.

(L-R) Karan Jain, Co-founder & COO, Anupam Agarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Revv

Car rental companies form a major part of it and recently Anupam Agarwal, CEO and Co-Founder, Revv, joined us for a conversation about the same. We discussed the car rental market in India and how it is going to shape up in future. Here is an edited excerpt from the conversation:

There are multiple players in the car rental space in India. Do you see that as a challenge or is the market big enough for multiple players?

I believe that is not a challenge for us and it won’t be anytime soon. The market is much bigger than what any of us can provide at this point. India is likely to become an opportunity for 100K shared cars in 3-5 years and out of that, today there are maybe 4,000 on the road. I don’t think the industry faces the question of intense competition in the space but of how to create a supply right now in a non-linear manner. Not having to buy everything. That is the first challenge.

Next would be to create awareness. If you go out and ask random people, you will realise that a large fraction of people aren’t even aware about the availability of car-sharing options available to them. These are the two main challenges that we need to bother ourselves with right now. There is space for many players and even in long run, there will be two or three major players occupying more than half the market with the remaining being occupied by long chain of small players.

What is the nature of users currently renting on your platform?

Right now, close to 60 percent of the demand is coming from outstation travellers. The remaining usage primarily comprises of people who will be driving in the city. This fraction includes people who hire over weekends to go around with their friends and the people who rent cars at their destination during their multi day visit.

At this point, there are not a lot of people who are using our service everyday but there certainly are people using it on a weekly basis.

And what about daily commuters? Are they opting for products like Revv to work?

The response for Revv to Work has been quite good. We have committed 15-20 percent of fleet for that product and we are almost always sold out on that component. We often receive calls from customers demanding us to increase the available inventory for Revv to work. However, we can’t really commit our entire inventory toward it because then we won’t be able to offer the same level of availability for travellers looking to rent short term.

Globally car makers are actively involved in sharing businesses, either with their own spin-offs or with partner startups. How do you think Indian car makers see rental companies?

I believe Indian manufacturers are warming up to the concept and we will see some major developments soon. Practice of car ownership will fade and an alternative model will replace it. Close to two percent of Indians own cars and that is a very small fraction when compared to say 80 percent in US or even 20 percent in China. Now if we look at the urban India, if that 2 goes up to even 5, the state of our roads won’t be pretty. Increase in access to cars through ownership won’t really work well here and sharing will allow sustainable growth.

What are some conditions you think are unique to the Indian market? Do you face issues working with insurers or regulators?

The challenge with insurers isn’t something that can be addressed immediately but yes, we would like some change in future. The fact that insurance here is associated with the vehicle and not with the driver limits us in some ways. If that is not the case and common records are maintained here as well, we will be able to offer better service and personalisation on various levels. We will be able to offer better prices to someone with a better record while retaining the standard prices for someone with a bad history of driving. However it won’t be easy for the industry to rearrange itself anytime soon.

About the regulators, we would love to have some more support for a marketplace model. Currently there are licences we are supposed to acquire for individual states which is not a problem for us at all. However, when we look at a collaborative model, the licence becomes a bottleneck in allowing other commercial cars from the road to be a part of the network. The owners need to acquire the licence and have to fulfil multiple conditions and have a certain scale of fleet. There are of course security reasons behind the barriers but a middle ground has to be found. They need to open up to the idea of platforms like ours taking the responsibility for the individuals willing to share. The regulation can be made around the company generating the supply and renting out the vehicles rather than the owner to make room for a true sharing model.

Do you think the likes of Uber and Ola have helped you?

Absolutely. In a big way. They have spearheaded this revolution and now there is a whole class of youngsters who don’t want to put their money on buying a car. In my own circle, I was the last person to buy a car and was very happy living with Meru Cabs for my needs till then. Back then however, the options were limited and I eventually had to buy one for all the outstation travel that wasn’t always possible with cabs. With the options available today, I wouldn’t have done that.

What channels have you been using to drive the demand for rentals?

For us, marketing hasn’t been a real challenge. We have been growing organically with some social media marketing and word of mouth. Whenever we have added to our fleet, the utilisation has automatically surged indicating that there is a good amount of latent demand in the market. More than the demand, we need to work harder on ramping up the supply and educating more people about the product.

What next can we expect from Revv?

We started with the vision of turning the two percent ownership into a 50 percent usage. We believe that at least half of the population should be able to access a car when needed, something only a car sharing solution can help accomplish. Of course adding new geographies is going to be one part but along with that, you will see expansion of the services we are offering with entirely new products.

There is a segment of users which has given up on the idea of car ownership and their varying needs cannot be taken care of entirely by the current product. If you are in a new city for a few months, you might want to have a vehicle for the period. With our current structure, that won’t be possible. However, going forward we are looking to cater to these customers without the baggage associated with car ownership. There are few more type of customers we have in mind that would require us to add new products. We want that all your transportation needs should be taken care of between us and the likes of Uber and Ola.

Outside of your business, what are the major transitions you see coming to the ground transportation space in long term?

One is certainly going to be electric vehicles. They are already gaining momentum in some parts of the world and in future, expect the intracity transport to go entirely electric. The developments in battery technologies driven by the likes of Tesla will help this further.

Another major change I believe would be the reduction in size of vehicles. A large number of people move alone in their vehicles and eventually we will see more vehicles tailored to that. We could possibly see modular options to cater to varying needs of travellers. Third will be sharing which of course we are a part of and in long term, it will be further driven by the entry of autonomous vehicles. Instead of owning, people will choose to access the resources as needed.

You can find more details about Revv on their website www.revv.co.in.

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Self-drive car rental marketplace JustRide has raised USD 3 million in bridge funding from Susa Ventures, Kima Ventures, Axan Ventures, SCM Holdings, ITFarm and Y Combinator partners Justin Kan, Qasar Younis and Paul Buchheit. With this fresh injection of funds, the company is looking to scale up the fleet size and develop new technologies for smart vehicles.

The startup was a part of Y Combinator’s summer batch and has previously received funds from the accelerator. After switching from an aggregator model to a marketplace model earlier this year, JustRide is looking to scale up the fleet from 300 to 2000 adding close to 300 vehicles per month. Along with this, they will put more funds towards JustConnect, their car sharing platform. The funds would also go towards further pushing Yabber, an IoT device to track driving analytics to be used for car sharing.

According to the news report by ET, JustRide has an annual GMV of USD 3.5 million and USD 1.5 million in net revenues currently. Abhishek Mahajan, CFO of JustRide claims that according to their projections, the company will be profitable when they have 500 vehicles in the fleet and will clock an annualised GMV of USD 5 million. The company is also looking at a higher round of USD 7 million from the current investors to further invest in the in-house Smart Vehicle Technology.

Source: ET

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Sharing is the future. We don’t want to own assets anymore, we just want to have access to them when needed. The earlier brands adapt to this behaviour, the better it is for them. Toyota has made a move in this direction and is now looking at helping people share cars. In order to do so, Toyota Motor Corporation will establish a Mobility Services Platform (MSPF) to collaborate with various service providers. The MSPF will have various functions to support mobility services, and leverage the Toyota Smart Center (TSC), the Toyota Big Data Center, and financial services.

Shigeki Tomoyama, President of Toyota’s in-house Connected Company stated: “As a mobility service platform provider, by collaborating with various companies and services, we would like to help create a new mobility society in order to offer safer and more convenient mobility to our customers”

The key highlight of this new development is the key, or rather the lack of it. Toyota has introduced a Smart Key Box that owners can install in their cars without any modification. Anyone sharing the car will be a sent a code through an app which will be authenticated via Bluetooth when they bring their phone close to the car. The access time and duration will be managed on the basis of booking time.

For sharing services, this eliminates the need of physically handling the keys or the controlled area network systems used by most rental companies. The idea of replacing car keys with phones isn’t exactly fresh and Volvo announced a similar feature on certain car models in the past to enable sharing through Sunfleet. However, the solution offered by Toyota can be retrofitted to existing vehicles enabling easy adoption and implementation.

The technology will be put to test in a limited pilot in San Francisco starting January 2017 in association with car sharing service Getaround. Last month the Mirai Creation Investment Limited Partnership, a fund in which Toyota participates, provided strategic investment to Getaround.

“Our goal at Getaround has always been to empower people to car-share everywhere,” said Sam Zaid, Getaround’s Founder and CEO. “Integrating our experience and purpose-built car-sharing technology with Toyota’s activities across mobility services opens up new opportunities to Toyota customers and the rapidly growing car-sharing market.”

By easing the sharing process, Toyota will be able to get more people to share their vehicles while allowing them to recover some of their ownership costs. In markets like US where a large number of vehicles are leased, people will be more open to the idea of sharing their cars. Many other automobile companies are exploring the sharing space recognising the opportunities. Toyota is further planning to get more people to share their vehicles by creating a new financial product to enable people to pay off their car lease with car-sharing programs.

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You weren’t wrong to assume that Didi will have smooth sailing ahead with Uber taken out of the equation. The American cab hailing giant was making some progress in the Chinese market but Didi was too big of a rival to back off without a fierce fight. So Uber decided to focus on other markets where it is on a level playing ground and the Uber China operations were taken over by Didi.

However, it isn’t all a frictionless road for Didi. Despite the massive scale in its home market, the size of the market means that Didi is yet to penetrate deeper into the market and the recently proposed regulations by some provinces could serve a massive blow to the progress Didi has made so far and cut down the number of driver partners to a very small percentage.

Now to make things worse for Didi, China’s Everbright Bank has invested USD 743 million in cab hailing app Dingding Yueche last week. While a relatively unknown name doesn’t sound like a threat to Didi, it is clearly gunning for the giant in its tough time. The proposed law, if implemented, would wipe out major chunk of Didi’s fleet putting Dingding Yueche on level ground in the major cities.

The proposed law could very well be the reason Everbright is investing in this young cab hailing company at this time. It is worth a mention that the bank is owned by China Everbright Group which is a state owned company. Although even Didi has received investments from state owned companies. Whether the investment turns out to be fruitful or not will largely be determined by how the regulations are finalised.

Source: Eco Business

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Automobile companies can’t afford to ignore the huge opportunity Chinese market offers. Apart from being a huge car market, it is also a big market for related transportation services. The latest validation of this massive opportunity comes in the form of an investment by General Motors in Yi Wei Xing. Yi Wei Xing is a leading car sharing technology provider in China and its product Feezu offers convenient car rental and car sharing experience.

Along with this, the company also offers a customisable cloud based car sharing platform for other car rental companies. GM says that it is another move in exploring personal mobility in China. GM has been on a drive to explore new models for car sharing and launched its car sharing service brand Maven earlier this year. The service was expanded to multiple markets over few months soon after the launch in January.

“Every market has its unique requirements for car-sharing services,” said Julia Steyn, GM vice president of Urban Mobility Programs. “Yi Wei Xing has solid technologies and innovations that will help us explore more efficient and personalized mobility solutions for consumers in China.”

The companies haven’t disclosed the details of the deal. The investment would allow GM to better understand the usage patterns in Chinese market and learn how people prefer to move. The American car maker has been making quick moves in the transportation space in a bid to be a part of the future of mobility. GM earlier acquired Cruise Automation, a startup working on driverless cars. The company also invested USD 500 million in Uber rival Lyft with the motive to build driverless cabs in future.

Other car companies aren’t left behind either. Volvo has been integrating features in vehicles to make sharing easier and has been pushing its own rental service Sunfleet. The Swedish manufacturer is also working with Uber, which recently acquired Otto, to develop driverless vehicles. Almost all the major automaker are now trying to be a part of the sharing trend for now and a driverless future in the long run which means it is very likely we will see more such developments in this space.

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European car rental comparison startup Happycar has raised a further Euro 2.6 million in funding. The leading investors for the company’s third round of funding are Creathor Venture, HR Ventures, Capnamic Ventures, NWZ Digital, and TruVenturo.

However, there has been a potential conflict of interest between a previous investor, Rocket Internet’s GFC, as he did not part take in the current round. It had disposed of its shares in Happycar late last year to Creathor Venture after Rocket invested in some related industry start-up.

Currently operative in Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Ital and Poland but targeting car rentals worldwide- Happycar has a typical metasearch engine play structure. It has partnered with almost 1,000 car rentals both international and local to let the consumer find best prices. Filters like car type and insurance packages could be added more than just the price.

Happycar’s current CEO Robert Schütze, who was previously at Rocket Internet’s Zalando working as Country Manager for the UK and Poland stated “We are happy our investors have confidence in us as a team and are satisfied with the development of our company. We also greatly appreciate the opportunity to further expand our business into new markets. Additionally, we continuously work on improving our product to maximise customer satisfaction, and to bring more transparency into our processes”

Instead of scrolling through various car rental websites, Happycar enables customers to compare various offers from car rental providers on one single platform with a comprehensive and a transparent overview.

Source: Techcrunch

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As people open up to the idea of sharing resources, the market for self-driving car rental is growing. People who don’t use their cars often aren’t willing to deal with the ownership and maintenance costs or the hassles. Moreover, an increasing number of travellers are looking to explore more when they step out during their vacations which means a significant fraction prefers self-drive rentals over other options.

Revv, Delhi-NCR based self-drive car rental company, has revealed expansion plans and is looking to more than double the fleet size over the next few months. Right now the company has a fleet size of 300 vehicles with presence across four major cities. They operate on a hybrid of ownership and marketplace model and their current fleet comprises largely of premium vehicles and close to a third of the vehicles in the fleet are provided via other self-driven vehicle providers.

Anupam Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO of Revv said, “Our concept of 100% doorstep delivery service along with our maniacal focus on customer experience has already given us strong traction and repeat-user base. We will now use this launchpad to scale-up quickly and expand our services in several cities across India. The repeat usage has been a very encouraging trend for us, in addition to the sheer width of use cases for which customers are making bookings. It has also turned our thinking towards new, innovative products which are tailor-made for upcoming and large use cases”

The company is looking to have a fleet size of 700 by this festive season. With the increase in fleet size, the company will also expand its footprint and expand operations to 8-10 cities by the end of this year.

In this space, the prime competitors are Zoomcar and Myles. Along with that, Avis has also announced plans to invest more in the Indian market which would further catalyse the competition.

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Car rental company Avis India is looking to expand its footprint in India over the next few years. The company plans to expand its fleet up to 8,000 cars in the next three years with an investment of around INR 450 crore. Avis targets a revenue of around INR 700 crore with the investment.

Avis has a global footprint because of which the brand not only offers rental services in India but also to Indian travellers travelling abroad. They will be looking to increase the number of countries where this service is offered.

The company targets to clock INR 350 crore in March 2017 and with the plan to grow strongly over the next three years, the rental company aims to have a revenue of INR 700 crore according to a statement shared by Avis India CEO Sunil Gupta with PTI.

Avis currently has a fleet of around 5,000 vehicles in India. The company plans to add another 3,000 with the infusion of funds for expansion. This will take their fleet close to 8,000.

The car rental space is expected to grow at around 12 percent while Avis has been registering a growth rate close to twice of that. Zoomcar and Myles are other fast growing car rental companies operating in India. Zoomcar claims to have a fleet of around 2,000 vehicles with presence across major Indian cities. The company recently an investment of USD 24 million led by Ford Smart Mobility. Myles has also been actively expanding its footprint in India with investments from parent company Carzonrent.

With Avis looking at growing further, we could very well expect the self-drive rental companies to penetrate deeper into the market and even start reaching Tier 3 cities.

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