Auto Digest: Zoom Raises USD 1 Mln, Zigwheels Launches Android App, BusIndia.com To Raise 200cr
A lot is happening in the auto space, especially for online players. Here are 3 buzzing news that have been doing rounds.
Zoom Car raises USD 1 Million Funding
Zoom Car, an online car rental company who bought the concept of self-driven cards in India has raised USD 1 mln funding led by New York based angel investor group Empire Angels. The funds will be utilized to scale up their car fleet and invest further in technology.
Founded by two Americans – Greg Moran and David Back – Zoom Car currently operates in the city of Bangalore. They have previously raised around USD 650,000 across multiple rounds, including a USD 200k investment from Raj Kumar Elango in July 2013.
Zoom car has plans to expand their operations to Mumbai & Delhi followed by other cities like Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune. [Source]
Zigwheels Launches Auto Information & Comparison Android App
Zigwheels, one of the leading automobile sites in India have made foray into mobile by launching a native android app that offers everything that a car or bike enthusiast may want.
The android app has been built by Times Internet Ltd. team, the parent company of Zigwheels. We downloaded their app for review, and were left quite impressed with the quantum of information offered by the app.
The app offers detailed information of all the car and bike models which are neatly categorized and can be searched using various filters like price, fuel type, make and model. The app users can get detailed information like specifications, photos, reviews, price quote, Colours among other things.
Apart from regular features like latest news, picture galleries etc, the app also offers neat comparison between various car and bike models!
The app will surely appeal to auto enthusiasts in India.
BusIndia.com planning to Raise INR 200 Crore via Private Equity Funds
I’d not be surprised if you did not know about busindia.com, but they are the largest online bus ticketing portal in the world and twice as much bigger than much talked about redbus.in.
Just to understand how large they are – here is a stat. BusIndia.com sells an average of 50,000 tickets daily and they have a revenue of over 100 crores
According to BusIndia’s Chairman and CEO, they are planning to raise around INR 200 crore through PE route to fund their expansion. The reason they were never known is because they were till now confined to selling tickets of State road transport corporations. The funds will be utilized to expand to to private operators and will also offers bookings for taxi service and hotels.
Venu Myneni, CEO of BusIndia.com mentioned, “We will soon be covering 80 per cent of bus inventory in the entire country”! [Source]
