Uber has led a US$10 million Series B into Carrum Mobility, its largest Uber Black fleet partner in India, at a post-money valuation of INR 16 billion, about US$168 million, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday. It is the second time Uber has written a cheque to the company. In January 2026 it put in US$7 million at a post-money valuation of INR 6 billion, about US$63 million. The valuation has risen from INR 6 billion to INR 16 billion since January, and Uber’s stake now stands at a mid-teens percentage.

Karan Jain founded Carrum in 2024. A former McKinsey consultant, Jain previously built Revv, which CarDekho bought in 2023, and CarDekho is an investor in Carrum as well. Carrum runs about 5,100 cars today and wants to be at roughly 11,000 within a year. More than 18,000 drivers have joined the platform in six cities so far: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Kolkata. Chennai is next on the list.

Revenue for the year to March 2026 came in at INR 2.33 billion, about US$24.5 million, nearly four times the INR 620 million of the year before, and the company closed the year with a net profit of INR 70 million. Its borrowing costs fell by about 40% over the same period. Carrum now puts its annualised revenue run rate at INR 400 crore and says it has made money every month since it opened, Entrepreneur India reported. The same report sizes the round at about INR 96 crore.

Carrum’s cars are split by Uber product. About 70% are hatchbacks on Uber Go, 10% are sedans on Uber Premier and 20% are SUVs, most of them on Uber Black, which is what makes the company Uber’s largest Black fleet partner in India. The relationship is not exclusive on paper. Jain told TechCrunch that Carrum has no plans at present to put its cars on rival platforms.

Jain said the new money would pay for entry into more cities, further work on Carrum’s technology and continued investment in the premium end of the service. Aditya Kapoor, director of supply at Uber India and South Asia, said Carrum had run a tight and disciplined operation, and that the investment would add better cars to Uber’s platform and support its premium tier.

Travel startup funding: the week’s other deals

Carrum’s round arrived in a strong week for Indian venture funding. Startups in the country pulled in US$321.9 million across 20 deals in the week to 11 September, an 82.4% jump on the US$176.5 million of the week before, according to Inc42’s weekly count. Carrum was the only travel-tech name on that list. Two other travel deals crossed the desk this week:

• Golden Horizon, the 300-guest sailing cruise ship built by the Brodosplit yard in Croatia, has found a buyer. A Swiss shipping company with a fleet of about 100 vessels has agreed to pay EUR 110 million for the ship, Travel And Tour World reported this month, citing Croatian press. The contract keeps the buyer’s name private.
• In China, CSTS Enterprises and ShanKai Sports have formed CSTS Hospitality, a joint venture aimed at premium sports hospitality, VIP travel and corporate hosting across China and the rest of Asia, according to Travel Daily News Asia.

Three facts from the Carrum deal matter to anyone buying ground transport in India. Uber now owns a mid-teens stake in the fleet that carries its premium passengers in six cities. That fleet intends to more than double within a year. And its founder has said it will not supply Uber’s rivals for now.

Key takeaway

Ground transport supply in India is being bought, not just contracted, and the platform that sells the ride now part-owns the cars. Hotels, airlines and OTAs selling airport transfers and chauffeur products in India should expect premium car supply and its pricing to be set increasingly by the platform rather than by the fleet. We would lock in transfer rates and capacity for the coming peak season now, and line up a second supplier in each city before Carrum reaches 11,000 vehicles.

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In its first investment in the country, the American automobile manufacturer Ford has invested USD 25 million in self-drive car rental company Zoomcar. This Series C round took the total equity funding of the company to USD 46.5 million. The other investors in the company are Sequoia Capital and Reliance Venture Management.

The latest investment has been led by Ford Smart Mobility, the automotive investment arm of Ford Motor Company. The self-drive car rental space has seen lot of activity recently and has seen wide adoption by professionals as well as leisure travellers. According to Business Standard report, Zoomcar is EBIDTA level profitable in several cities and is close to being country wide profitable in the next three months. Zoomcar has recently switched to a marketplace model which would allow the brand to quickly expand the scale by adding cars on a rev-share basis.

Zoomcar has a fleet of around 1600 cars with primary markets being cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. However the company is looking at Tier II and Tier III cities for expansion. The car-rental space isn’t without competition and the primary competitor for Zoomcar here is Myles. New players have also emerged in this space however most of them don’t have a significant scale yet.

Automobile manufacturers are increasingly showing their interest in services than being limited to just products. Many European car makers have either spun off rental or car sharing services or invested into such companies. Car ownership is going to see a decline as the access economy gains momentum which means the core businesses of the automobile giants is going to be affected. Earlier Ford Smart Mobility invested in a California startup that is generates 3D maps to help driverless cars.

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The inevitable has happened. Everyone associated with driverless cars feared that the incident involving Tesla Model S will hurt sentiments around autonomous vehicles and put the regulating authorities on the defensive. As a result, Chinese officials have asked automobile manufacturers to stop testing driverless cars on Chinese highways until proper regulations are in place.

According to the head of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, She Weizhen, they have a preliminary draft of the regulations that will be implemented. However, a timeline of when the guidelines will be released and implemented hasn’t been shared.

Until a while back, China has been pushing for driverless cars urging automobile manufacturers to adopt new technologies and work towards bringing new innovations in mobility space. However, now they are trying to strike a balance between public safety and innovation in auto industry.

In China, Baidu has been actively involved with driverless cars and LeEco also recently showcased its Tesla rivalling product. With this new announcement, the developments in this space will slow down. The Tesla Model S incident is still being investigated thoroughly and its legal consequences could significantly impact how automakers all over the world go on about autonomous vehicles. They might face an increased political pressure with tough regulations putting the developments on a slower pace.

However we are optimistic as the reports suggest that as the draft of rules is ready, they will be finalised soon and the manufacturers will be able to resume testing once they are in place.

Source: engadget

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