Business Wire India | 06 Oct, 2017
Drivezy, a self-drive peer-to-peer car and bike sharing company, announced a $10M round of fresh investment. New and existing investors participated, including Das Capital, Axan Ventures, CrowdWorks and IT-Farm. This is in addition to an earlier $6 million round from Y Combinator, White Unicorn Ventures, Dheeraj Jain, Punit K Goyal, Alok Mittal, Susa Ventures, Qasar Younis, Paul Buchheit, Kima Ventures, Justin Kan, IT-Farm. Drivezy has raised a total of $16M to date. In addition to raising this round, Drivezy announces the launch of its first private Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to expand their peer-to-peer sharing marketplace for cars and bikes. A pioneer in the vehicle sharing industry, they are building a platform that aims change the way people purchase, use and sell vehicles. Drivezy will deploy a major part of the new investment to create Rental coins- A currency that would transform the global car-sharing industry.
âConsidering the rising cost of vital assets and resources especially housing and transportation, I believe the future is a shared one. The world is moving on to a collaborative model of consumption and our mission is an aggressive journey to change the way people purchase, use and sell motor vehicles,â said Ashwarya Singh, CEO & Co-founder, Drivezy. âThe funds raised will fast-track our strategic expansion into new markets across India and global markets.â
Breaking geographic barriers and tapping into the enormous growth potential of sharing economy, Drivezy partnered with Unocoin, a leading Indian Bitcoin exchange company, to accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment. Thus, making Drivezy, the only self-drive car and bike rental company in India to accept cryptocurrency. This technology allows individuals to transact value across the globe securely without the need for any intermediary party. Thereby, fueling the growth of collaborative systems where all resources are shared by the members of the community.
âFew startups appear at the right time, with the right team to up-end a large market, and Drivezy is part of that exclusive club,â said Morio Kurosaki, the President of IT Farm. âWe have been strongly supporting Drivezy from the start, and have been impressed by how the team has a clear vision and plan to offer access to cars for the 94% of the population of India who do not currently own a car,â said Julien Nguyen, General Partner at IT-Farm.
âWith the growing popularity of Bitcoin in India, we feel that this is the right time to open alternative means in the sharing economy. This ICO is part of our vision to leverage the power of the blockchain to build an open, secure and transparent technology to globalize the Indian car sharing marketplace,â said Ashwarya. He added, âRental coins can potentially create almost 10 Lakh micro-entrepreneurs who can supplement their household income by renting their assets.â
The ICO had been announced in Japan at a Conference hosted by AnyPay, a Japanese Fintech company who has also invested in Drivezy. AnyPay will be providing Drivezy with ICO advisory support in terms of scheme structuring and token development. The launch of ICO will allow Drivezyâs investors to purchase cryptographic tokens which entitle them to a share of the revenue generated by rental transactions on the platform, which has proven to generate an average RoI of 30%. Further details regarding the ICO may be found at www.rentalcoins.com. âDrivezy is building something more than a simple sharing business; they are building a system that can unify the global sharing economy. I chose to support them as I believe that they have the knowledge and skill to accomplish their vision,â Shinji Kimura, CEO - AnyPay said.
Founded in April 2015, Drivezy (formerly JustRide), allows individual car owners to list their idle cars on the Drivezy platform; the cars are then rented by customers. Since the launch of their vehicle sharing platform, over 800 owners have listed 1,318 vehicles with Drivezy in four cities. With a monthly GMV of over $950,000 per month and a 246% growth in unique customers over the last year, Drivezy is the largest marketplace for vehicle rentals in India.
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