Oct 3, 2013

Empire Angels leads round for Indian car rental startup Zoomcar October 3, 2013 By Iris Dorbian ZoomCar said Thursday that it has closed its seed funding in a round led by New York based Empire Angels. No financial terms were disclosed, although this funding does bring Zoom’s outside capital to over $1.6 million. Other investors in this latest round include Funders Club, Basset Investment Group and former SEC Commissioner Lady Barbara Judge. Based in India, ZoomCar, which is also backed by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers (who’s a member of the company’s board of advisors), is a car rental company. PRESS RELEASE Oct 3, 2013 Bangalore and New York ZoomCar, Inc. (“Zoom”), the revolutionary car rental company started in Bangalore, India, today announced that it closed its Series Seed round of capital, led by New York based Empire Angels. Additional investors who participated in the round include SF based venture capital firm Funders Club, Basset Investment Group, Former SEC Commissioner Lady Barbara Judge, as well as other active angel investors in the US, Europe, and India. This investment round brings Zoom’s total outside capital raised to over $1.6M. Former US Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers is an earlier investor in Zoom and a member of its board of advisors. “I’m thrilled to announce the strong support we received from Investors across the world” stated Greg Moran, CEO and Co-Founder of Zoom. “We’ve seen phenomenal customer adoption since our February launch. This infusion of capital will enable us to rapidly expand our fleet and add headcount to bolster our technology and operations. Zoom is dedicated to providing its customers with a superior car rental experience with the newest fleet in the country and the convenience of hourly rentals. Zoom was built with a focus on high quality customer service and will maintain the same level of service as we expand into new markets.” Zoom is India’s first and only car-sharing company (similar to Zipcar in the US), offering neighborhood based, membership-only car rental by the hour or by the day. Zoom launched operations in Bangalore with 7 vehicles in February 2013 and has grown to a fleet of 52 vehicles as of Oct 1, 2013. Zoom offers a mix of vehicles from Ford, Mahindra, Volkswagen, and BMW for hourly and daily tariffs. “Empire Angels has eagerly re-invested and led the Series Seed round for Zoom,” said Graham Gullans, Founding Managing Director of Empire Angels, a NYC based group. “Zoom has hit on all cylinders in a short amount of time. They have excelled operationally, proving both local demand and management’s capability to deliver results.” Graham will join the Board of Directors, alongside the founders. The Indian personal-transportation space has seen considerable activity recently, with the $140M acquisition of RedBus in June and the September soft-launch of global luxury chauffer service powerhouse Uber in Bangalore. Car-sharing has been accelerating around the world, propelled in part by Avis’ $500M acquisition of Zipcar in January 2013. Chinese car-sharing company eHi has raised more than $100M in outside investment and is consistently named one of the “greenest” businesses in China. Zoom has a bold vision for the future of car sharing in India. “Zoom is confident that Indian cities represent the best opportunity for car-sharing globally due to incredible levels of urban density coupled with other demographic considerations. Zoom will ultimately push to bring our solution to all Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities across India over the coming years” said David Back, President and Co-Founder of Zoom. Zoom Zoom’s website is www.zoomcar.in © 2015 Buyouts Insider / Argosy Group LLC