Investor backing also looked bullish in the global scenario. Moran discovered that the 10 biggest car rental start-ups across the globe had gathered at least $1.2 billion in funding from popular investors like Canaan Partners, Sequoia Capital, Warburg Pincus, and Fidelity Growth Partners, among others. With the success of the car-rental firms in the US and China, Moran was confident that the idea would work in India too. Finally, Moran and Back agreed to kick-start a self-drive car start-up in India.

In the summer of 2011, Moran paid a visit to India for a business reconnaissance, to gather the relevant facts of the land as he had yet to gain complete practical exposure to India as an entrepreneur. He trotted around the country, visited 25 cities to identify promising places for his idea from the demographics point of view, like population, average age-group, income class, etc. The cities included Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mangaluru, Mysuru, Ahmedabad, Agra, Surat, and Goa. Though the self-driving car rental was little known in India, globally it was a popular segment. Turo, Silvercar, and Zipcar were some of the big names in the self-driving car rental segment in the US, while eHi Car Services...

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IDEA TURNED DOWN

Moran found the going tough with prospective investors in India. The idea of self-driving cars did not appeal to any of those whom Moran approached initially. They gave several excuses for rejecting the idea, the infrastructure in India being a major one. They said the infrastructure in the country was not conducive to giving away the cars to the rentees. They bluntly told him that the idea was not likely to work as it did in the USA and in China. A few others pointed out that Indians by nature did not like driving. They, by and large, preferred being driven by a driver/ chauffer....

AND THEN THE MEETING…

Just when it looked like the idea would die before it was born, Moran met the management of Ford Motors in Delhi. The meeting helped breathe fresh life into Zoomcar and turn its fortunes around. It introduced Moran to Bengaluru-based Ramesh Tours and Travels, a firm which agreed to rent out its license to Zoomcar.....

INVESTORS ON BOARD

Though prospective Indian investors shied away from the Zoomcar idea, due to lack of familiarity with the concept to investors in the West, it was like Zipcar, a successful firm in the US. Zoomcar thus drew the attention of Western investors who provided the initial round of funding. In May 2013, ZoomCar closed its first official round of seed funding, led by New York-based Empire Angels, for $ 120000. Other investors in the round included Funders Club, Basset Investment Group, and former SEC Commissioner Lady Barbara Judge. The same year, Zoomcar also received funding of $ 200,000 from Raj Kumar Elango, a Bengaluru-based angel investor...

TALENT ON BOARD

Zoomcar witnessed consistent progress. The funding resulted in its expansion into Delhi. It went on to expand to other cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad, through December 2014 to April 2015. Moran admitted that hiring was one of the biggest challenges he faced at Zoomcar. Finding great talent and aligning with the company’s vision needed immense focus. To Moran, hiring was never easy. As the expectations grew with the business scale, finding the right talent that understood the business the way Moran did was a challenge. He confessed that he ran the firm without the right talent at the top for a long time, which retarded the pace and agility at Zoomcar. Eventually by 2015, Moran was able to identify talent for various departments of Zoomcar. He handpicked his team that comprised Prashant Verma, Paritosh Gupta, and Harish Rawat as CTO, COO, and CMO respectively. All were alumni of Indian Institute of Technology , and brought along immense experience...

GROWING COMPETITION

Moran believed that Zoomcar largely operated in a unique white space as most of its competitors adopted the model only after Zoomcar had launched it. The self-driving car rental segment witnessed growth in competition. About 25 start-ups followed Zoomcar’s model that included Myles, Voler, JustRide, and Revv. Though Zoomcar had the first mover advantage and the investor’s backing, it looked like the going would get tough with the space getting increasingly crowded. However, none of the competitors offered Zoomcar’s model in entirety. Competitors like Carzonrent and Myles did not focus purely on self-drive. They tried mixing and matching all the possible modalities of cab rentals, like radio taxi, leasing, chauffeur driven, etc. which left Moran confident about Zoomcar’s prospects. Moran believed that it needed full focus on any particular business model to emerge successful.

THE ZAP PROGRAM

In light of the market dynamics, Moran had to carve out a niche for Zoomcar in the $ 7 billion market of cab services. He targeted the upwardly mobile and young audience, who had come to a new city. An audience in the age group 18-30 years was Zoomcar’s sweet spot, according to Moran. Weekend travel had come up as a popular trend in the metro cities among that segment of audience where Zoomcar’s offering was inimitable in terms of the variety of fleet, the pricing, and the overall customer experience. Moran knew that Zoomcar was seen more as a weekend utility. Weekday utility among individuals and corporates was yet to pick up....

ROAD AHEAD

By December 2016, Zoomcar’s presence expanded to about 12 cities and its monthly revenues clocked more than $ 1.47 million with an average ticket size of $ 58.85. Moran had no intention of slowing down. He had the ambitious goal of running a fleet of 25,000 cars across 25 cities by 2018....

EXHIBITS

Exhibit I: Zoomcar’s Funding Rounds
Exhibit II: Zoomcar’s Strategic Milestones
Exhibit III: Zoomcar – Strategic Tie Ups