Drivezy

Drivezy, formerly JustRide, is a marketplace for self-drive cars and two-wheeler rentals, headquartered in the city of Bangalore, Karnataka. Launched in April 2015, the company went by the name Justride and served as an aggregator in the carsharing space. In July 2017, the company underwent a rebranding exercise and shifted focus to the marketplace model. Drivezy started featuring motorcycles and scooters on ITS Platform in the same month. As of July 2017, the company operated 880 cars and 2500 two-wheelers on its platform with services in 6 cities across India including Mumbai, Bangalore Pune, Goa, Mysore and Mangalore. Drivezy was one of the 3 Indian companies selected by Y Combinator for the 2016 summer batch. Back then it went by the name JustRide.

History

2015-16: Founding and incorporation

The company was initially BRANDed as JustRide and founded in April 2015 by Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Hemant Sah, Vasant Verma and Amit Sahu, all alumni of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad and Abhishek Mahajan of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. JustRide was conceptualised when Ashwarya and his friends lost their newly purchased Ford Figo in an unfortunate accident. Starting off as a luxury car rental service with 8 cars, JustRide adopted the aggregator model. The company dry leased cars from licensed operators. The cars were in turn micro-leased to people on an hourly basis.

2016-17: Marketplace and Rentalcoins

In March 2016, the company launched a marketplace platform, allowing individual owners to list their cars. In July 2017, JustRide was rebranded as Drivezy. The company also adopted a new logo and cited that the new identity complemented its transition to a marketplace platform. Drivezy opened its platform to two-wheelers (motorcycles and scooters) in the same month.

In October 2017, Drivezy began accepting payments in Bitcoin, becoming the first vehicle sharing company in India to accept a cryptocurrency. The company has also announced the launch of its own cryptocurrency; Rentalcoins.

Growth

Drivezy commenced country wide services in August 2015 with simultaneous launches in Bangalore and Pune. Drivezy was selected by Google for the maiden batch of the Launchpad Accelerator program in January 2016. Under Google's mentorship, the company piloted a carsharing platform which enabled people to rent their idle cars when.

Drivezy was selected by the American startup accelerator Y Combinator for the 2016 summer batch. Drivezy was one of the 44 startups that presented on the Day 1 of the YC Demo on 23 August 2016.

Most recently, Drivezy has raised $10 million in a part-equity and part-debt round. The equity investment totalling $5 million has been made by Axan Partners, Das Capital and IT Farm, while a group of banks and NBFCs including Mahindra Finance, ICICI Bank, Cholamandalam Finance and Shriram Finance has invested $5 Mn in debt in Drivezy.1

Products and services

Car Sharing

Drivezy is primarily a car sharing platform where customers can rent cars on an hourly or daily basis. The company aggregates cars from licensed operators which it classifies as vendors. In March 2016, the company announced the launch of a peer-to-peer car sharing platform which let individual owners rent their vehicles to urban commuters.

Two Wheeler Rentals

Drivezy introduced motorcycles and scooters on their platform in 2017. Working on C2C module akin to its car sharing platform, the company launched two-wheeler rental services in Bangalore with 250 motorcycles and scooters. In August 2017, Drivezy started renting two wheeler vehicles in Mysore.

Smart Vehicle Technology

Smart Vehicle Technology or SVT, in short, is an in-house product developed by Drivezy for the purpose of scaling the company's car sharing business. SVT makes use of a car's on-board diagnostics (OBD) and Global Positioning System to relay performance parameters such as tire pressure, fuel consumption, and vehicle location to a central server. The data is used to keep track of vehicles and schedule repairs accordingly.

Rentalcoins

Rentalcoins is a cryptocurrency launched by Drivezy that allows collaborative investments into a shared fleet of vehicles. By purchasing Rentalcoins, investors crowd fund vehicles that are listed on Drivezy.

Corporate affairs

Management and staff

Drivezy's founding team serves as the key managerial staff for the company; Ashwarya Pratap Singh, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; Abhishek Mahajan, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer; Hemant Sah, Chief Technology Officer; Vasant Verma, Chief Operating Officer and head of marketing and Amit Sahu, head of research and development and supply chain.

In February 2016, Bharat Palani Nathan, who previously served as the COO with business rival Zoomcar joined Drivezy as executive director of operations.

Location and headquarters

The company is headquartered in Bangalore and has operational offices in Mumbai, Pune, Mangalore ,Goa and Mysore.

Business model

Drivezy is a marketplace platform where car rental operators with a rent-a-cab license can on-board their vehicles. The company rents cars to its customers without owning any cars itself. As of December 2015, Drivezy hosted 350 cars from 16 vendors. The company operates on a sale and lease back model which is similar to the Indian low-cost airline Indigo. In March 2016, Drivezy started diversifying to a market place model, allowing private owners to enlist their cars.

See also

• Car rental
• Carsharing